I mean… if you’re raised as a decent human being, killing somebody is against every moral thing you’ve ever been taught. And so, generally, in combat it’s ‘krauts,’ the ‘gooks,’ the ‘yanks’ – whatever you want to do to try and make it so that it’s not a human being.
Yes, America must do the right thing, but to provide moral leadership, America must do it in the right way, too.
Samurai culture did exist really, for hundreds of years and the notion of people trying to create some sort of a moral code, the idea that there existed certain behaviors that could be celebrated and that could be operative in a life.
Those in the international community that refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.
After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question.
My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards – but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home.
My Dad is my hero. He’s 85 now and he is in great health. He is handsome and strong. He has an incredible moral and ethical backbone. I couldn’t have been luckier with my parents.
The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution can compromise humanity’s traditional sources of meaning – work, community, family, and identity – or it can lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a sense of shared destiny. The choice is ours.
I think it’s a mother’s dream come true to see it work out that way. Not just the mother, but certainly parents, to know that their children have a very solid moral foundation and religious foundation.
Literature isn’t a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.
If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.
Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.
A habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression.
The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.
It still strikes me as strange that anyone could have any moral objection to someone else’s sexuality. It’s like telling someone else how to clean their house.
The problem was with Bill Clinton, the scandals and rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones never ended. Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.
I will not become a Napoleon nor an Alexander, and labour for my own ambition; but I will labour for freedom and for the moral well-being of man.
The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible. Not only should we not get our moral compass from religion, as a matter of fact we don’t.
The French elites’ strategy of trying to defeat the Le Pens by aping their rhetoric, stealing their policies, and pandering to their voters has been a political and moral failure.
As for Hollywood, there was an offer. But I declined to do it because of certain moral and ethical values.
By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu.
Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.
The United States lost a bit of the moral high ground when it comes to warning the world of the danger of cyberattacks.
So I’m just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone.
I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test.
You look at the Americans. They don’t lack fervour in moral causes. They promote democracy, freedom of speech, women’s rights, gay rights, sometimes even transgender rights. But you don’t see them applying that universally across the world with all their allies.
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Publicity, publicity, publicity is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life.
Yes, one can repent of moral transgression. The miracle of forgiveness is real, and true repentance is accepted of the Lord.
Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable.
We are, in many respects, in a moral and spiritual free-fall in our country, and we are paying a terrible price.
Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.
If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it… seemed a defeat.
In life, there’s second chances. But that doesn’t mean everyone gets a second chance with your team. That’s where your moral compass comes in.
In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life, you don’t get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
We need to be clear when we venerate entrepreneurs what we are venerating. They are not moral leaders. If they were moral leaders, they wouldn’t be great businessmen.
I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to stand up for those citizens of the world who cannot stand up for themselves, and I am proud to have authored the bill signed into law today that continues to put significant pressure on the brutal Burmese military junta.
We can’t reform mandatory spending in this area until we first deal with ours. I tell my colleagues, ‘Let’s get the moral high ground and demonstrate that we want to make changes to our pension, and then we can deal with the big problems.’
He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.
Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what’s happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story.
Politicians, in many cases – their moral code will be dictated by what can get them reelected, what they can get away with. When you’re out of office, I guess you’re freed from those checks and balances.
We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.
All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.
Moral values, and a culture and a religion, maintaining these values are far better than laws and regulations.
Religion is the belief in an ever-living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind.
With regard to moral rules, the child submits more or less completely in intention to the rules laid down for him, but these, remaining, as it were, external to the subject’s conscience, do not really transform his conduct.
Liberal interventions that enable all children to shoot for their potential aren’t just moral, they are pragmatic – any society that wastes talent to poverty or oppression isn’t just evil: it is stupid.
Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.
It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.
As for ‘Great Expectations’, it is up there for me with the world’s greatest novels, not least as it vindicates plot as no other novel I can think of does, since what there is to find out is not coincidence or happenstance but the profoundest moral truth.
Democrats always like to brag that their guys are smarter than the opponents and Republicans always like to brag that their guys are more moral than the opponents. But if you’re looking for morals in politics you’re looking for bananas in the cheese department.
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
