Quotes About Morality And Values

#1. Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.

Sam Harris

#2. There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

Sam Harris

#3. Without the sense that individuals are responsible for their own actions, and that there are appropriate consequences to violating society's most basic values, the concepts of morality and right and wrong become meaningless. And then you have no society.

Mark Olshaker

#4. Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines?

Dan Barker

#5. This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero.

Ayn Rand

#6. Purpose, or mission, is determined by the development of values, balance, ethics, humor, morality, and sensitivities. It manifests itself in the way we look at life.

Luci Swindoll

#7. A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Socrates

#8. Modern society, the political body, the legal and judiciary system, the state of governance, capitalism and the very fabric of the society itself, including our religions and so-called morals and values, are institutions steeped in traditions of absolute and total violence.

Bryant McGill

#9. The values derived from religious belief will not - and should not - be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus.

Mario Cuomo

#10. Religion must affirm, in the clearest terms, that morality and ethical values are not mere decorative frills of personal opinion, not subjective superstructure, but intrinsic laws of the cosmos built into the heart of reality.

Bhikkhu Bodhi

#11. Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.

Ayn Rand

#12. Values aren't buses," she said shortly. "They're not supposed to get you anywhere. They're supposed to define who you are. And I'd rather be touchy-feely than morally bankrupt.

Jennifer Crusie

#13. We conservatives bemoan the decline in values that has besieged our society. Why then should we not abhor the lack of morality involved in discharging untested chemicals into the air, ground, and water to alter and harm, to whatever degree, human life and wildlife? As a conservative, I do abhor it.

Wendell Berry

#14. There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.
All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Ayn Rand

#15. There's such cultural rot taking place, such a disintegration throughout our culture. Values, morality, you name it. Standards have been relaxed, and people are not being held to them. People's intentions, if they're said to be good and honorable, that's all that matters.

Rush Limbaugh

#16. In civilized societies, if you are offended by a cartoon, you do not burn flags, take up guns and raid buildings, chant death to your opponents, or threaten suicide bombings. You write a letter to the editor.

Michelle Malkin

#17. Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately negative returns.

Thomas Sowell

#18. A society that is not founded on morality falls apart and becomes easy prey to puritan cults such as Islam that on the surface, promote family values and morality.

Ali Sina

#19. We should challenge the relativism that tells us there is no right or wrong, when every instinct of our mind knows it is not so, and is a mere excuse to allow us to indulge in what we believe we can get away with. A world without values quickly becomes a world without value.

Jonathan Sacks

#20. Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality.

Herman Kahn

#21. Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death.

Ayn Rand

#22. Morality and legality have nothing to do with one another. I'm more than fine with breaking a law if it disagrees with my values and morals.

Ashly Lorenzana

#23. War is the action of low man: Low in morality, low in humanity, and low in all the good values!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#24. The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values in universal terms.

Sam Harris

#25. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

Ayn Rand

#26. Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality ... an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth.

Parker J. Palmer

#27. The putting to death of morality had, on the whole, become a sort of ritual sacrifice necessary for the reassertion of the dominant values of the group - centered for some decades now on competition, innovation, and energy, more than on fidelity and duty.

Michel Houellebecq

#28. What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.

Albert Einstein

#29. Ultimate prosperity is one's value within. It takes a man of depth, morality, and charm to be envied yet without a sign of wealth or romance. A passion to prove such inner worth is his permission to achieve whatever he desires.

Criss Jami

#30. If truth and moral values are relative, one cannot claim that certain human rights are universally applicable to all cultures and all people.

Stephen McAndrew

#31. The world in which we now live is a world whose outlook is so distorted that we absolutize what is relative (money-making, power, success) and relativize what is absolute (truth, moral values, and God).

Alice Von Hildebrand

#32. Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism.

Jonathan Haidt

#33. Our morality is based on so many factors: of where we were born, who we were born to, what values were instilled in us, what values we chose, the way that our lives have shaped us. That dictates so much of what we assume is our morality, and also the culture, all of these things.

Oscar Isaac

#34. If a bully mocks you, just think about your positive values compared to the bully and ignore his or her harsh comments.

Saaif Alam

#35. It's not enough, and so limiting, to teach the simplistic value of a designer's material wear. Give children the gift of values that will last far beyond [a] fad's temporal popularity.

T.F. Hodge

#36. Guided by nothing but pop culture values, many children no longer learn how to think about morality and virtue, or to think of them at all. They grow up with no shared moral framework, believing that the highest values are diversity, tolerance and non-judgmentalism.

Gary Bauer

#37. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

Ayn Rand

#38. For us, universal values such as justice, morality and peace cannot be disputed and it is for this reason that we pursue the restoration of historical truth.

Robert Kocharian