Quotes About Morality

Would he go for a bribe? Straight cash?' 'He says it's against his principles,' David Dilbeck said. 'But he's amenable to a free blowjob.' A pulse became visible in Moldowsky's neck. 'Let's see if I understand. Only if the lady goes down on the judge does she get custody of her child?' 'He says he'll consider it, that's all. 'Brownie points' is the way he put it.' 'David, I'll say this: you're one terrific negotiator. They needed you at the fucking SALT talks.

Eventually she came to believe that her condition was one that couldn't be treated medically; she was doomed to demand more decency and consideration from her fellow humans than they demanded of themselves.

Erin thought, ludicrously, of how disappointed her mother would be. When one's only daughter is hacked to death wearing a sequined bra top and a G-string--well, there's really no way to explain it to one's friends at the orchid club.

These are the folks who brought us the hydrogen bomb. Forgive me, Lord, for not being more grateful to these kind souls

If we're absolutely sure that our beliefs are right, and those of others wrong; that we are motivated by good, and others by evil; that the King of the Universe speaks to us, and not to adherents of very different faiths; that it is wicked to challenge conventional doctrines or to ask searching questions; that our main job is to believe and obey—then the witch mania will recur in its infinite variations down to the time of the last man.

A healthy young man can produce in a week or two enough spermatozoa to double the human population of the Earth. So is masturbation mass murder? How about nocturnal emissions or just plain sex? When the unfertilized egg is expelled each month, has someone died? Should we mourn all those spontaneous miscarriages?

We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?

It is interesting that it is not the getting of any sort of knowledge that God has forbidden, but, specifically, the knowledge of the difference between good and evil-that is, abstract and moral judgments, which, if they reside anywhere, reside in the neocortex.

Edmund Way Teale in his 1950 book Circle of the Seasons understood the dilemma better: It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.

T. H. Huxley's formulation was The foundation of morality is to … give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.

Or consider the mainstream religions. We are enjoined in Micah to do justly and love mercy; in Exodus we are forbidden to commit murder; in Leviticus we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves; and in the Gospels we are urged to love our enemies. Yet think of the rivers of blood spilled by fervent followers of the books in which these well-meaning exhortations are embedded. In

TABLE OF PROPOSED RULES TO LIVE BY The Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Silver Rule Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. The Brazen (Brass) Rule Do unto others as they do unto you. The Iron Rule Do unto others as you like, before they do it unto you. The Tit-for-Tat Rule Cooperate with others first, then do unto them as they do unto you.

Tom Paine wrote in The Age of Reason: Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

What is there in the precepts of science that keeps a scientist from doing evil?

No Satan, no God.

her mezhep ve kült diÄŸerleri üzerinde ahlaki bir denetimdir: Rekabet ticarette olduÄŸu kadar dinde de yararl?d?r.

And because what we are doing is so horrifying, we tend not to think of it much.

However, in part for reasons of organizational convenience, modern societies are structured as if all humans had the same sleep requirements; and in many parts of the world there is a satisfying sense of moral rectitude in rising early. The amount of sleep required for buffer dumping would then depend on how much we have both thought and experienced since the last sleep period.

O primeiro pecado da humanidade foi a fé; a primeira virtude foi a dúvida.

If the enemy can think and feel, you might hesitate to kill them. And killing is very important. Better to see them as monsters.

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth—scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books—might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it. What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?

Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, "I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!

I don't believe in villains or heroes--only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents.