Quotes About Values

We are all suspended in a sphere of imagery and voices vying for attention. How do we know that what's going on is actually in our best interest? How can we be sure that our way of life will be preserved for the future? And do we really want it to be?

When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased.

The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation.

The purpose of foreign policy is to influence the policies and actions of other nations in a way that serves your interests and values. The tools available include everything from kind words to cruise missiles. Mixing them properly and with sufficient patience is the art of diplomacy.

scholar," wrote my father, "inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror—what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of . . . identity.

Thus was conceived a phenomenon that would split America from right to left and raise ominous questions—of a type we still face—about whether a democratic citizenry can be talked into betraying its own values.

In my view, no country has the right to dictate to others how they should be governed; but we all have good reason to speak up on behalf of democratic values. Our support will not make a difference in all cases, but when we do make a difference, it should be in the direction of greater respect for the individual and improved governance for society.

Where in the past I could assume that the U.S. government would put its foot down on the side of democratic institutions and values, Trump's foot has been fully engaged in kicking America's allies, the independent press, federal prosecutors, immigrant families, and the notion—stressed to most children at an early age—that facts matter.

Some may view this book and its title as alarmist. Good. We should be awake to the assault on democratic values that has gathered strength in many countries abroad and that is dividing America at home. The temptation is powerful to close our eyes and wait for the worst to pass, but history tells us that for freedom to survive, it must be defended, and that if lies are to stop, they must be exposed.

whether a democratic citizenry can be talked into betraying its own values.

The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn't appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

no country has the right to dictate to others how they should be governed; but we all have good reason to speak up on behalf of democratic values

Fascist attitudes take hold when there are no social anchors and when the perception grows that everybody lies, steals, and cares only about him- or herself.

we must be certain that our children can face these challenges armed with a well-developed moral compass.

We should never separate our values from the ways in which we encourage our children to become effective family members, friends, collaborators, and citizens.

Money buys many things, but typically not a sense of either authenticity or meaning.

When we pay for tutors and turn a blind eye to irresponsible behavior, whether it's cheating or not getting adequate sleep, are we fooling ourselves? When we tell our children we want them to have "options," is that really another way of saying that we want them to get the best possible grades, so they can go to the best possible college and graduate school, to prepare them for the best possible jobs, which disproportionately seem to be in the field of finance?

outgrowth of materialism is the notion that there are "winners" and "losers," the "haves" and the "have-nots." Parents need to check in with themselves regularly and avoid endorsing values that pit children against each other or suggest that resources are so scarce that children must be in constant competition.

What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another. We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory… We are men only, a brief flare of the torch.

A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy you a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred.

Thus we see that the quantisation of atomic energies into a ladder of seperate values, rather than allowing them to take on the entire continuum of possible values, lies at the heart of the life-supporting stability and uniformity of the world around us.

And you can sit out here in the hour before dawn, boy, and think virtuous thoughts and tell yourself how noble you are and all that shit, and you are going to lay back and hang on to the money, because that is the way the world keeps score. Not your way. Not lately.

That old honorary Cuban had simplified the question all to hell when he'd said that a moral act is something you feel good after. Conversely, you feel bad after an immoral act. But what about the act that is neither moral nor immoral, Papa? How are you supposed to feel then?

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake.