Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Thomas Jefferson

I never… believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.

Man | Morality | Public |

Dietrich von Hildebrand

The splendor and metaphysical reality of morality flashes forth only when the absolute goodness is seen not merely as the platonic idea, but as the living God.

Absolute | God | Morality | Reality |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

There is no morality in politics; there is only expediency.

Morality | Politics |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Throw away holiness and wisdom and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves.

Industry | Justice | Morality | People | Right | Will | Wisdom |

Michael Levin

Children first conceive morality as rules for pleasing their parents – only with the fullness of time comes a grasp of the idea of conscientious choice.

Children | Choice | Morality | Parents | Time |

Abu’l A’la Mawdudi

In the so-called Western secular democracy… a divorce has been effected between politics and religion, and as a result of this secularization, the society and particularly its politically active elements have ceased to attach much or any importance to morality or ethics.

Democracy | Ethics | Morality | Politics | Religion | Society | Society |

Majjhima Nikāya

The purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms [or] honor... nor in gaining morality [or] concentration... That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that indeed, is the object of the Holy Life, that is its essence, that is its goal.

Alms | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Morality | Object | Purpose | Purpose |

John Courtney Murray

Whereas the old morality saw things as so simple that moral judgment was always easy, the new morality sees things so complicated that moral judgment becomes practically impossible.

Judgment | Morality | Old |

John Courtney Murray

Power can be invested with a sense of direction only by moral principles. It is the function of morality to command the use of power, to forbid it, to limit it.

Morality | Power | Principles | Sense |

Max Otto, fully Max Carl Otto

Morality is a means for the satisfaction of human wants. In other words, morality must justify itself at the bar of life, not life at the bar of morality.

Justify | Life | Life | Means | Morality | Wants | Words |

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

Human morality is composed of four interconnecting principles: a genetic predisposition toward survival, the neural development of the brain, a social imperative toward group cohesion, and a cognitive propensity to make distinctions between right and wrong and good and evil. Our moral continuum appears to be strongly influenced by the degrees of connectedness we feel with others; the more connected we feel, the more we act with generosity, compassion and fairness.

Compassion | Evil | Fairness | Generosity | Good | Morality | Principles | Right | Survival | Wrong |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The fundamental principle of all morality is that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is not any original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right.

Good | Heart | Justice | Man | Morality | Nature | Order | Right |

Fukuzawa Yukichi

One hundred volumes of international law are not the equal of a few cannons; a handful of treaties are not worth a basket of gunpowder. Cannon and gunpowder are not aids for the enforcement of given moral principles, they are implements for the creation of morality where none exists.

Law | Morality | Principles | Worth |

Gustave Weigel

The function of civil law is not to teach theology or even the moral views of the legislator… The morality of divorce, birth control, liquor traffic and the like are one thing. Civil legislation about them is quite another.

Birth | Control | Law | Morality | Teach | Theology |

Albert Einstein

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

Balance | Beauty | Dignity | Existence | Important | Life | Life | Morality | Beauty |

Neil Kurshan

The most powerful lessons about ethics and morality do not come from school discussions or classes in character-building. They come from family life where people treat one another with respect, consideration, and love.

Character | Consideration | Ethics | Family | Life | Life | Love | Morality | People | Respect |