Quotes About Morality

If slavery was justified on the ground that masters were white while slaves were black, Lincoln warned, "By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own." If it was defended on the ground that masters were intellectually the superiors of blacks, the same logic applied: "By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own." The

The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.

It's so much easier to define crime than it is to put your finger on justice.

Honor is a contagion deep as fear

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.

the fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes [moral] objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity

T]he Old Testament, [...] if considered as a general rule of conduct, would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality.

Should a traveler, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted, men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge, who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies.

But where the ideas of morality and decency alter from one age to another, and where vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper character of blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot, nor is it proper I should, enter into such sentiments; and however I may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of age, I can never relish the composition.

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality.

The worst speculative Sceptic ever I knew, was a much better Man than the best superstitious Devotee & Bigot." "I must inform you, too, that this was the way of thinking of the Antients on this Subject. If a Man made Proffession of Philosophy, whatever his Sect was, they alaways expected to find more Regulaity in his Life and Manners, than in those of ignorant & illiterate.

Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel?

The virtues of valor and love of liberty; the only virtues which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and humanity are commonly neglected.

It is only from the selfishness and confined generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin.

He insists that if we knew that God was all-good, we could account for the appearance of evil. However, we have to reason backward from our experience, which reflects a mixture of good and evil in the world. Philo contends that from what we experience, it is more likely that whatever being or force runs the world is morally neutral.

The rules of morality. therefore, are not conclusions of our reason. No one, I believe, will deny the justness of this inference; nor is there any other means of evading it, than by denying that principle, on which it is founded.

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable than in philosophical debates to endeavor to refute any hypothesis by a pretext of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality (Hume, 1739, p.456).

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence.

The ultimate Author of all our volitions is the Creator of the world, who first bestowed motion on this immense machine, and placed all beings in that particular position, whence every subsequent event, by an inevitable necessity, must result. Human actions, therefore, either can have no moral turpitude at all, as proceeding from so good a cause; or if they have any turpitude, they must involve our Creator in the same guilt, while he is acknowledged to be their ultimate cause and author.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.