morality quotes from influential philosophers, authors and people
"Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment! They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake BEFORE us- they inevitably become our instinctive calumniators and detractors, even when they still remain our 'friends.'"
147
"Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual."
197
"It is within the power of every man to live his life nobly, but of no man to live forever. Yet so many of us hope that life will go on forever, and so few aspire to live nobly."
236
"I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."
357
"Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion."
555
"The measure of a man is what he does with power."
627
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do."
688
"The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy."
710
"We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us."
944
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."
967
"The death of dogma is the birth of morality."
979
"But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows."
980
"Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness."
990
"All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay."
994
"It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living."
1001
"Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces."
1008
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."
1009
"Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself."
1050
"The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God."
1076
"People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good."
1168
"Compassion is the basis of morality."
74