If physical power be the fountain of law, then law and force are synonymous terms. Or, perhaps, rather, law would be the result of a combination of will and force; of will, united with a physical power sufficient to compel obedience to it, but not necessarily having any moral character whatever.
Matters of taste are not, it turns out, moral issues.
Sometimes, in order to follow our moral compass and/or our hearts, we have to make unpopular decisions or stand up for what we believe in.
When you have a voice, you also have a moral obligation to use that voice for good.
If time is money, it seems moral to save time, above all one’s own, and such parsimony is excused by consideration for others. One is straight-forward.
We need to elect leaders who have a strong moral compass. Leaders who are honest, straightforward, and tough – with a love of justice and fair play.
I wanted to play around with the format, really tear it to pieces and shake it up. For example, if Mitch saves someone from drowning, and that person then goes out and releases a virus that kills a million people. Imagine the moral implications of that.
Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.
We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices.
And so, today, if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition, it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens.
The name of Jesus, like a secret charm, awakened similar emotions in the hearts of all the converts, and called immediately into action every feeling of moral loveliness, and every desire of dutiful obedience, which constitute Christian purity.
Much of the world’s moral compass is broken. The moral north reads south and the moral south reads north.
The notion of humans as inherently rational beings has been not only trashed in economics, but trashed in all the best research on moral decision-making.
To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature.
I grew up on DC Comics, moral tales where the bad guys got their comeuppance. To me the gory panels or grotesque stuff just made me chuckle.
The Blunt Amendment would have allowed any employer who provided health insurance, or any insurance company, the right to deny coverage for contraception or any other kind of procedure if the employer had a ‘moral’ objection to it.
Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men’s private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.
The truth is, everything ultimately comes down to the relationship between the reader and the writer and the characters. Does or does not a character address moral being in a universal and important way? If it does, then it’s literature.
The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.
What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root.
We wanted to see this country win the war just as much as those advisors did. We felt we would help to do that by reporting the truth. And so there was the moral outrage over this general and the ambassador in Saigon who kept denying the truth we would see.
Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you’ll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a ‘moral value’ – ‘affordable health care is a moral value’ etc., – then you’ll appeal to red-state voters.
The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.
Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.
The highest grossing films have great, moral messages – not dirty, base themes, so we’re trying to get producers to make more of the uplifting movies.
The Obama administration contends that starting a for-profit business means leaving religious liberty behind. The administration has effectively told the Supreme Court that for-profit companies have no right to act on moral convictions the government opposes. They are about profits. That position is deeply mistaken.
People need religion. It’s a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.
Every night I go over what I did in the day, in ethical or moral terms. Have I treated people properly? Did I tell the truth?
The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.
Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy, but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.
Kids are born into the situation they’re born into, and obviously, they have no control over that. And we, as adults, it’s up to us to take care of kids – that’s part of your moral responsibility. I always tell people, ‘There’s two groups we should take care of – old people and young people.’
If female were working in the same proportion as men do, the level of GDP would be up 27 percent in a country like India, but also up 9 percent in Japan and up 5 percent in the United States of America. It’s not just a moral issue, not just a philosophical issue. It just makes economic sense.
It is a sad day for our country when the moral foundation of our law and the acknowledgment of God has to be hidden from public view to appease a federal judge.
Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.
The likability of any player is always up for debate, and people will always use their own moral compass to judge Luis Suarez, but that’s not something I tend to focus on. I concentrate on what he is like with me on a day-to-day basis, and he is a great man.
Lyndon Johnson faced some clear moral issues.
The individual makes a clear effort to define moral values and principles that have validity and application apart from the authority of the groups of persons holding them and apart from the individual’s own identification with the group.
The idea of telling a story in reverse destabilises your ordinary moral reactions. That’s one of the points of art – to challenge your preconceptions.
I believe that if your primary motivation in life is to be moral, you don’t become an artist.
We must get back to a very strong Christianity… Christianity shaped America and England, and we need to get back to those moral foundations that made us great.
Physical pain however great ends in itself and falls away like dry husks from the mind, whilst moral discords and nervous horrors sear the soul.
We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.
At an expense trifling indeed, compared to what she frequently spends upon unprofitable contests, she might place the moral world on a new foundation, and to rise the pinnacle of moral glory.
A truly moral health care system should start out by covering all of its citizens with basic health care. It would not be seduced by its technology and fancy buildings.
Progressive rhetoric has the effect of concealing social crisis and moral breakdown by presenting them as the birth pangs of a new order.
When you’re a liar, a person of low moral fortitude, really any explanation you need to be true can be true. Especially if you’re smart enough. You can figure out a way to justify anything.
I lost my moral compass and I have done terrible things that I very much regret.
I’m not looking to be famous, but I want a body of work and a moral character that is deserving of fame.
Moral evil is the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy that come because we choose to be selfish, arrogant, uncaring, hateful and abusive.
Technologists provide tools that can improve people’s lives. But I want to be clear that I don’t think technology by itself improves people’s lives, since often I’m criticized for being too pro-technology. Unless there’s commensurate ethical and moral improvements to go along with it, it’s for naught.
