157 Moral Philosophy Quotes

Following is our list of moral philosophy quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about what is philosophy.

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Famous Moral Philosophy Quotes

Moral principle is the foundation of law. — Ronald Dworkin

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance. — Seneca

Morality is a private and costly luxury. - Henry Adams

Morality is a private and costly luxury. — Henry Adams

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. — Leon Blum

universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. — Charles Darwin

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy. — Voltaire

Good morals lead to good laws. — Chuck Norris

The moral law commands us to make the highest possible good in a world the final object of all our conduct. — Paul Ricoeur

Medical ethics is a fascinating discipline, as it deals with issues replete with complex philosophical, moral, and ethical considerations that are rarely black or white. — Gad Saad

Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions. — Naval Ravikant

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Morals are private. Decency is public. — Rita Mae Brown

The key to living a moral life is this: Do nothing in private that you would be ashamed to discuss openly with your mother. — J. P. Morgan

Morality Moral Philosophy Quotes

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants. — Peter Kreeft

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. — Isaac Asimov

Moral philosophy quote Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self r
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.

Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever the right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established. — Ludwig Feuerbach

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. — Bill Watterson

Freemasonry embraces the highest moral laws and will bear the test of any system of ethics or philosophy ever promulgated for the uplift of man. — Douglas MacArthur

Moral philosophy quote Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and
Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing. — Anthony Burgess

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. — Mark Twain

God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. — Douglas Adams

Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul. — Karl Jaspers

What Is Philosophy Quotes

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. — Lord Kelvin

My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier. — Anthony Hopkins

My philosophy is such that I am not going to vote against the oppressed. I have been oppressed, and so I am always going to have avote for the oppressed, regardless of whether that oppressed is black or white or yellow or the people of the Middle East, or what. I have that feeling. — Septima Poinsette Clark

Moral philosophy quote A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

Cut throats, gun smoke, dope, and hoes, is what controls niggas souls. — Snoop Dogg

There is a saying in Bali: "We have no art. We do everything as beautifully as possible." This reflects my philosophy of practice. I try to remember daily what a gift it is to have the privilege of living in this wondrous world. — Sam Keen

The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important. — Mark Manson

Moral philosophy quote My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am and
My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you. — Frederic Chopin

He who claims to be sure of something for which there is no evidence is a fool, and he who acts on the basis of what cannot be proved is an imposter. — Han Fei

One of my big philosophies is that fighting is the sport that crosses all borders. I don't care what color you are, what country you come from or what language you speak, fighting is in our DNA. We get it and we like it. — Dana White

While 9-5 and what happens on the job is important, what happens from 5-9, off the job, is infinitely more important. — Zig Ziglar

What Is Your Philosophy Life Quotes

Your life is a product of your thoughts, what you think about all day becomes the basis of your life. — Leon Brown

What if life is just a cosmic joke, like spiders in your underwear. — Jimmy Buffett

You are Christians; find out what is true and false in Christianity - and you will then find out what is true. Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and cruelties, and then you will find out what is true. Why do you want philosophies? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Moral philosophy quote Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.

You only see what your eyes want to see. How can life be what you want it to be? — Madonna Ciccone

Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them. — Chris Prentiss

You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do. — Patrick Ness

Moral philosophy quote Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world. — Vivienne Westwood

Political Philosophy Quotes

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. — Thomas Jefferson

A wise man once said, never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment. — Frank Zappa

The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation? — Gilles Deleuze

A cult is a religion with no political power. - Tom Wolfe

A cult is a religion with no political power. — Tom Wolfe

Extreme liberalism is not a political philosophy. It is a mental disorder. — Michael Savage

It is impossible to understand history, international politics, the world economy, religions, philosophy, or ‘patterns of culture’ without taking geography into account. — Kenneth C. Davis

Moral philosophy quote Bad company ruins good morals.
Bad company ruins good morals.

The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. — Malcolm X

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. — John Adams

There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions. — Robert Reich

If it is correct to say that there will always be rightist temperaments and leftist temperaments, it is nevertheless also correct to say that political philosophy is neither rightist nor leftist; it must simply be true . — Jacques Maritain

Moral Ethics Quotes

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant

Do the right thing because it is right. - Immanuel Kant

Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant

How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! - A. A. Milne

How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne

Moral philosophy quote The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Solidarity is based on the principle that we are willing to put ourselves at risk to protect each other. — Starhawk

The meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future. The claim that we would not have morals or ethics without religion is extraordinary. Animals in nature seem to behave in moral ways without organized religion. — Bill Nye

If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce

Moral philosophy quote Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
Leisure is the mother of philosophy.

My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide. — Eric Clapton

Stand for something. Don't quest for popularity at the expense of morality and ethics and honesty. — Howard Cosell

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad. — Stephen King

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Moral Education Quotes

Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education. — Charlotte Mason

There is no god and there is no soul. Hence, there is no need for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is dead and buried. There is no room for fixed and natural law or permanent moral absolutes. — John Dewey

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. — Theodore Roosevelt

Moral philosophy quote Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy. — Woody Allen

We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining. — Desmond Tutu

Moral philosophy quote I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Whoever wants to be a leader should educate himself before educating others. Before preaching to others he should first practice himself. Whoever educates himself and improves his own morals is superior to the man who tries to teach and train others. — Ali ibn Abi Talib

The object of basic education is the physical, intellectual and moral development of children through the medium of handicraft. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is a mistake to try to impose Christian beliefs on children and to make them the basis of moral training. The moral education of children is much too important a matter to be built on such foundations. — Margaret E. Knight

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible. — Desmond Tutu

Philosophy And Ethics Quotes

Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy. — Paul Kurtz

Colleges don't teach economics properly. Unfortunately we learn little from the experience of the past. An economist must know, besides his subject, ethics, logic, philosophy, the humanities and sociology, in fact everything that is part of how we live and react to one another. — Bernard Baruch

Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, are things Christ unsparingly condemned. Destitute of fire, they are nothing more than a godless philosophy, an ethical system, and a superstition. — Samuel Chadwick

Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. — Paracelsus

Although I respect the Judeo-Christian ethic, as well as the Eastern philosophies, and of course the teachings of Muhammad, I find that organized religion has corrupted those beliefs to justify countless atrocities throughout the ages. Were I to go to church, I'd be a hypocrite. — Danny Masterson

Philosophy is an odd thing... There is no particular Socratic or Dimechian or Kantian way to live your life. They don't offer ethical codes and standards by which to live your life. — Stephen Fry

Ethics are complete, profound and alive only when addressed to all living beings. Only then are we in spiritual connection with the world. Any philosophy not representing this, not based on the indefinite totality of life, is bound to disappear. — Albert Schweitzer

The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy. — Paul Hawken

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal. — Robert Sheckley

As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates 'called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil. — Jostein Gaarder

Moral Life Quotes

The most important thing in life is to dare. The most complicated thing in life is to be afraid. The smartest thing in the world is to try to be a moral person. — Shimon Peres

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Improve the World Through Music. — Plato

Females in our generation morals are just out the window. Materialistic things aren't life. I'd rather walk in the rain with a man who treats me like a queen than to ride in a Benz with a man who treats me like crap. — Jhene Aiko

When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat

Do not try to fix whatever comes in your life. Fix yourself in such a way that whatever comes, you will be fine. — Jaggi Vasudev

Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. - C. S. Lewis

Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. — C. S. Lewis

Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. — Emile Durkheim

One must speak for a struggle for a new culture, that is, for a new moral life that cannot but be intimately connected to a new intuition of life, until it becomes a new way of feeling and seeing reality — Antonio Gramsci

We have to build a better man before we can build a better society. — Paul Tillich

Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to. — Emile Durkheim

Modern Philosophy Quotes

Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory. — Louis Pasteur

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial. — Henry David Thoreau

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..." — Carl Sagan

We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place. — Joseph De Maistre

In point of fact, Western philosophy has never set itself free of Christianity: wherever Christianity did not have a hand in the construction of modern philosophy it served instead as a stumbling block. — Jacques Maritain

Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living. By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for specialists. — Pierre Hadot

Modern philosophy certainly exacts a surrender of all supernaturalism and fixed dogma and rigid institutionalism with which Christianity has been historically associated — John Dewey

Behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism one must not fail to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society. — Vladimir Lenin

There follows a little obscenity here, a dash of philosophy there, considerable whining overall, and a modern satirical novel is born. — Renata Adler

Academe : An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy : A modern school where football is taught. — Ambrose Bierce

Moral Action Quotes

Unless the will is free, man has no freedom; and if he has no freedom he is not a moral agent, that is, he is incapable of moral action and also of moral character. — Charles Grandison Finney

Someone ought to do it, but why should I? Someone ought to do it, so why not I? Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution. — Annie Besant

Protest to be effective, must be followed by resolute action and at this crisis in world history when materialistic energy aims at overthrowing spiritual energy and moral values, action needs to develop into a world crusade for the Spiritual Humanity. — Vida Goldstein

If we are not inwardly wrought upon, and changed by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, and our moral actions proceed from a principle of a new nature, however we may call ourselves Christians, we shall be found naked at the great day. — George Whitefield

If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. — Ludwig von Mises

It is not what they profess but what they practice that makes them good — Greek Proverbs

Every moral act of love, of mercy, and of sacrifice brings to pass the end of the world where hatred, cruelty, and selfishness reign supreme. — Nikolai Berdyaev

I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil. — Sylvester Stallone

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. — Albert Einstein

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

People Writing About Moral Philosophy

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Read quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche
quotes on god, love and morality

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Read quotes by Seneca

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quotes on life, love and time

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Read quotes by Henry Adams

Henry Adams
quotes on teachers

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Read quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer
quotes on life, love and marriage

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Read quotes by Charles Darwin

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quotes on change, evolution and natural selection

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Read quotes by Voltaire

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quotes on life, government and human nature

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More Moral Philosophy Quotes

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. — C. S. Lewis

The confessing church of American Ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands. — Brennan Manning

The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship. — William Howard Taft

Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue. — Francis Bacon

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. — Thomas Jefferson

The atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when his philosophy in fact precludes it. — William A. Dembski

A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality. — W. Winwood Reade

Sufism is not a religion or a philosophy, it is neither deism nor atheism, nor is it a moral, nor a special kind of mysticism, being free from the usual religious sectarianism. If ever it could be called a religion, it would only be as a religion of love, harmony, and beauty. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality. — William Winwood Reade

Propaganda replaces moral philosophy. — Hans J. Morgenthau

I think . . . that philosophy has the duty of pointing out the falsity of outworn religious ideas, however estimable they may be as a form of art. We cannot act as if all religion were poetry while the greater part of it still functions in its ancient guise of illicit science and backward morals. . . . — Corliss Lamont

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. — Francis Bacon

We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central. — Iris Murdoch

Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking. — Ayn Rand

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different. — Thomas Hobbes

Teachers who do not take their own education seriously, who do not study, who make little effort to keep abreast of events have no moral authority to coordinate the activities of the classroom. — Paulo Freire

It is not reason that gives us our moral orientation, it is sensitivity. — Maurice Barres

Morality must be the heart of our existence, if it is to be what it wants to be for us. The highest form of philosophy is ethics. Thus all philosophy begins with "I am." The highest statement of cognition must be an expression of that fact which is the means and ground for all cognition, namely, the goal of the I. — Novalis

Democracy may have arisen in the West as the way of striving for the universal aspiration to dignity and freedom, but it isn't alien to the underlying concepts that infuse religion and moral philosophy everywhere. — Flora Lewis

I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate. — Michel de Montaigne

When we call something unfair or indecent or unconscionable or evil, when we speak of mercy and pity and compassion, those words have meaning, regardless of our particular faith or moral philosophy. They appeal to common standards we all are expected to understand and accept, standards without which we could not live any common life at all. — Matthew Scully

I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. … The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced. — Albert Einstein

Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices. — Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy. — John Cheever

The pretended physical philosophy of modern days strips Man of all his moral attributes, or holds them of no account in the estimate of his origin and place in the created world. — Adam Sedgwick

As a dad, he thinks that his philosophy is morally correct. He has no conscience whatsoever about letting his kids put a penny in a light socket to find out electricity is not so good for you, and if you want to learn how to swim, you have to be thrown into the deep end. — Stacy Keach

I do not oppose violence simply because it is counterproductive. I oppose it because it betrays animal rights philosophy. Those who resort to such tactics really have not understood that animal rights is about the extension of moral concern to all sentient beings--humans obviously included. — Andrew Linzey

The divine element manifests itself (or show up) in man as well by his aptitude for science, than by his aptitude for virtue. True morality, true philosophy and true art are in their essence ("dans leur essence", Fr.) religious." — African Spir

The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle. — John Stuart Mill

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom. — Aristotle

Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction. — Michel de Montaigne

Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science. — Edward Abbey

To assert that it is possible to establish peace between men of different nations is simply to assert that man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two forces within the individual contribute to the development of his conscience and of his morality: reason and sensitivity. — Leon Bourgeois

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