Quotes About Morality

Nessun amante dell'umanità può rallegrarsi di un futuro postumano.

In alcuni casi cruciali, però, il disgusto è l'espressione emotiva di una saggezza profonda, cui la ragione non è in grado di dar voce.

Le persone che riescono a tenere tra le mani una vita nascente con freddezza e senza timore reverenziale hanno ucciso qualcosa nella propria anima.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

Generally speaking, by the way, that is the moral of the opponents of violence in politics: they renounce violence when it comes to introducing changes in what already exists, but in defense of the existing order they will not stop at the most ruthless acts.

Aquí es donde Dios quiere que esté su pueblo… en la frontera, sosteniendo y guardando sus Mandamientos, que son la piedra angular de la existencia moral del hombre. ¿En qué otro sitio podemos estar?

and the righteous cowed and the evil grew bold.

Era corriente que los cráneos bien formados fueran recuperados y vendidos a los guardias alemanes, que los utilizaban como pisapapeles.

Egoists hold that a man's primary moral obligation is to achieve his own welfare (egoists do not necessarily agree on the nature of man's welfare).

The Nazi] death camps," notes a writer in The New York Times, "were conceived, built and often administered by Ph.D.'s."10 What had those Ph.D.'s been taught to think in their schools and universities—and where did such ideas come from?

The Nazi] death camps," notes a writer in The New York Times, "were conceived, built and often administered by Ph.D.'s.

The standard by which ideas are to be judged, Hitler says repeatedly, is not "abstract" considerations of logic or fidelity to fact. The standard is: usefulness to the Volk.

There is no such thing as truth," explains Hitler, "either in the moral or in the scientific sense." Or as Goebbels puts the point: "Important is not what is right but what wins.

Advocates of self-sacrifice hold that a man's primary obligation is to serve some entity outside of himself.

The Nazis preached a certain philosophy—and they carried it out in action. They preached authority above rights, the group above the individual, sacrifice above happiness, nihilism above morality, feelings above facts, pliability above absolutes, obedience above logic, the Führer above the self—and they applied it.

In an advanced, civilized country, a handful of men were able to gain for their criminal schemes the enthusiastic backing of millions of decent, educated, law-abiding citizens. What is the factor that made this possible?

The branch of philosophy that studies values is ethics (or morality), which rests on both the above branches—on a view of the world in which man acts, and of man's nature, including his means of knowledge.

The branch of philosophy that applies ethics to social questions is politics, which studies the nature of social systems and the proper functions of government.

Providence," said Hitler to Rauschning, has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing men from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge; from the dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a chimera called conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and personal independence which only a very few can bear.45

In the field of morality, the Nazi's primary obligation is to renounce, to renounce his self, in the full, literal sense of the term: his values, in the name of society; his judgment, in the name of authority; his convictions, in the name of flexibility.

The motor behind Hitler was not men's immorality or amorality; it was the Germans' obedience to morality—as defined by their nation's leading moral philosopher.

To liberate humanity from intelligence, Hitler counted on the doctrines of irrationalism. To rid men of conscience, he counted on the morality of altruism. To free the world of freedom, he counted on the idea of collectivism.

Moral laws, according to Kant, are a set of orders issued to man by a nonheavenly, nonearthly entity (which I shall discuss shortly), a set of unconditional commandments or "categorical imperatives"—to be sharply contrasted with mere "counsels of prudence.