Quotes About Morality

Compassion is the basis of all morality

No animal ever torments another for the mere purpose of tormenting, but man does it, and it is this that constitutes the diabolical feature in his character which is so much worse than the merely animal.

Since long ago all peoples have recognized that the world, apart from its physical meaning, also has a moral one. Yet everywhere the matter has only come to a vague consciousness, which, as it sought expression, clothed itself in all sorts of images and myths. There are religions.

What a bad conscience religion must have is to be judged by the fact that it is forbidden under pain of such severe punishment to mock it. - On Religion

For to kill a man in a fair fight, is to prove that you are superior to him in strength or skill; and to justify the deed, you must assume that the right of the stronger is really a right.

Conscience accompanies every act with the comment: You should act differently, although its true sense is: You could be other than you are.

The actual facts of morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can ever be replaced or upset by any other.

cur numeri musici et modi, qui voces sunt, moribus similes sese exhibent? ): Probl. c.

The prayer "Lead me not into temptation" means: "Let me not see who I am.

In its death throes, we see religion clinging to morality, whose mother it would like to pretend to be. In vain! – genuine morality is dependent on no religion, although religion sanctions and thereby sustains it.

For boundless compassion for all living beings is the firmest and most certain guarantee of moral good conduct and requires no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will certainly injure no one, infringe on no one, do no one harm, rather, forbear everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as much as he can, and all his actions will carry the imprint of justice and loving kindness.

Reason recognized from this the fact that, both to lessen the suffering spread among everyone and to distribute it as uniformly as possible, the best and only means is to spare everyone the pain of suffering wrong by having everyone renounce the enjoyment attainable by wrongdoing.

Every ought simply has no sense and meaning except in relation to threatened punishment or promised reward … . Thus every ought is necessarily conditioned through punishment or reward, hence, to put it in Kant's terms, essentially and inevitably hypothetical [with if-clause] and never, as he maintains categorical [without if-clause] … Therefore an absolute ought is simply a contradictio in adjecto.

El mundo es malo, como se viene diciendo desde hace mucho tiempo: los salvajes se comen unos a otros y los civilizados se engañan mutuamente, y a eso es a lo que damos el nombre del progreso.

the true believer who commits heretics to the flames is as much a murderer as the bandit who makes a profit from his murder

these people would indeed only be concerned for themselves, for their egoism, just like the bandit, from whom they are distinguished only by the absurdity of their means.

they are nothing more than pseudo-accounts by which he seeks to satisfy his own reason about a good deed

Si se pudiese castrar a todos los canallas y encerrar en conventos a todas las muchachas tontas, dotar de un harén a todos los hombres de carácter noble, y de verdaderos hombres a todas las muchachas inteligentes y sensatas, pronto nacería una generación que eclipsaría la época de Pericles.

La conmiseración con los animales está íntimamente unida a la bondad de carácter de tal suerte, que se puede afirmar de seguro que quien es cruel con los animales no puede ser buena persona

Voltaire says, we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as we found it on our arrival.

Inspira tal horror el egoísmo que inventamos la cortesía para ocultarlo como una parte vergonzosa de nosotros mismos.

What we do to the animals is perhaps their hell

Si en los pequeños asuntos cotidianos, las pequeñeces de la vida... un hombre es desconsiderado y sólo busca aquello que le resulte ventajoso o conveniente, sin importarle los derechos de los demás; si se apropia de lo que pertenece a todos por igual, puede usted estar seguro de que no hay justicia en su corazón y de que sería un villano de talla mayor si no fuese porque la ley y la fuerza le atan las manos.

La compasión por los animales está íntimamente asociada con la bondad del carácter y puede ser afirmado que el que es cruel con los animales no puede ser un buen hombre.