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MORALITY
*
“Ethical
religion can be real only to those who are engaged
in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving
upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without
limit.”
-- Felix
Adler
*
The
truth which has made us free will in the end make
us glad also. Every
outcry against the oppression of some people by other
people, or against what is morally hideous is the
affirmation of the principle that a human being as
such is not to be violated. A human being is not to
be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.”
-- Felix
Adler
*
The end of the Cold War removed the immediate causes
of whole destruction -- but not the threat contained
in our knowledge. We must tame this knowledge with
the ideals of justice, caring, and compassion summoned
from our common human spiritual and moral heritage,
if we are to live in peace and serenity in the twenty-first
century.
--
Mahnaz Afkhami
*
"The doctrine that might makes right has covered the
earth with misery. While it crushes the weak, it also
destroys the strong. Every deceit, every cruelty,
every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes
its author. Justice is moral health, bringing happiness,
wrong is moral disease, bringing mortal death."
-- John
Peter Altgeld
Moral
excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate
acts, brave by doing brave acts.
-- Aristotle
(384-322 BC)
We
are committed with our lives to building a different
model and a different future for humanity, the Earth,
and other species. We have envisaged a moral alternative
to economic globalization and we will not rest until
we see it realized.
-- Maude
Barlow
*
"The power of a movement lies in the fact that
it can indeed change the habits of people. This change
is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral
persuasion. "
-- Stephen
Biko
*
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of
world that it leaves to its children.”
-- Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
*
…the first essential component of social justice is
adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right
of all who are born into this world.
-- Norman
Borlaug
*
To assert that it is possible to establish peace between
men of different nations is simply to assert that
man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious
beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two
forces within the individual contribute to the development
of his conscience and of his morality: reason and
sensitivity.
-- Léon
Bourgeois
Scientists,
therefore, are responsible for their research, not
only intellectually but also morally. This responsibility
has become an important issue in many of today's sciences,
but especially so in physics, in which the results
of quantum mechanics and relativity theory have opened
up two very different paths for physicists to pursue.
They may lead us - to put it in extreme terms - to
the Buddha or to the Bomb, and it is up to each of
us to decide which path to take.
-- Fritjof
Capra
*
I think there are a lot of strong leaders around the
world who have made very convincing arguments about
the weakness of corporate-led globalization and the
compelling nature of alternatives. A
huge part of our power came from our moral authority
... the moral issue of debts as being killers of millions
of poor people around the world...I think our power
is also rooted in our intellectual power. I think
there are a lot of strong leaders around the world
who have made very convincing arguments about the
weakness of corporate-led globalization and the compelling
nature of alternatives.
-- John
Cavanagh
*
Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral
obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin
sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself.
What would you think me if I were capable of seating
myself at a table and gorging myself with food and
saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving
to death.
-- Eugene
V. Debs
Thus if the First Amendment means anything in this
field, it must allow protests even against the moral
code that the standard of the day sets for the community.
In other words, literature should not be suppressed
merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
-- William O. Douglas
-- Justice
William O. Douglas
*
We have been led to believe that we have come a long
way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is
not the case. Our government is not doing all that
it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the
obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The United States must assume world leadership to
end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It
is our moral responsibility.
~ Harrison
Ford
*
The
greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be
judged by the way its animals are treated.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
*
The
greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged
by the way its animals are treated.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
*
"If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal,
with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold
of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution
- and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity."
~ Jane
Goodall
*
"If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal,
with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold
of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution -
and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity."
~ Jane
Goodall
*
Nuclear weapons have forced us to consider whether
we will be the last generation. They challenge the
moral dimension of our humanity. Our technological
abilities must not outstrip our moral insights, rendering
us less than fully human. For in this age, acting
without reliance on the gifts of law, morality and
wisdom will be lethal. What right do we have to place
all life on the planet at risk in the service of a
human construction, the state, when it is presently
legally required and within our political means to
globally eliminate all nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons
elimination will make all states and their people
safer. It is time to assert our right to live in a
nuclear weapons free world.
-- Jonathan
Granoff
Tolerance,
a term which we sometimes use in place of the words
respect, mercy, generosity, or forbearance, is the
most essential element of moral systems; it is a very
important source of spiritual discipline and a celestial
virtue of perfected people.
-- M.
Fethullah Gülen
*
Genuine
politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the
only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is
simply a matter of serving those around us: serving
the community and serving those who will come after
us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility
expressed through action, to and for the whole.
-- Vaclav
Havel
It
was once said that the moral test of government is
how that government treats those who are in the dawn
of life, the children; those who are in the twilight
of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows
of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
-- Hubert
Humphrey
"Every
act of every man is a moral act, to be tested by moral,
and not by economic criteria."
-- Robert
Maynard Hutchins
In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters
of taste, swim with the current.
~ Thomas
Jefferson
I
never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single
act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having
never believed there was one code of morality for
a public, and another for a private man.
~ Thomas
Jefferson
"A
nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every
member of it is personally responsible for his society."
-- Thomas
Jefferson
I
look forward to a great future for America - a future
in which our country will match its military strength
with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom,
its power with our purpose. --
John
F. Kennedy
I
would always encourage people of any age not to be
so quick to follow other people's truths but to search
and follow your own moral code and live by your own
integrity, and mostly just be brave.
-- Jewel
Kilcher
"I
criticize America because I love her. I want her to
stand as a moral example to the world." --
Martin
Luther King, Jr
“I
became convinced that noncooperation with evil is
as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with
good.” --
Martin
Luther King, Jr
Nonviolence
is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force
which makes for social transformation. -- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
[nonviolence]
seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. --
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
*
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.
-- Lewis
Lapham
*"Why
wouldn't I help? What good reason do I have as a human
being with power and a sense of empathy and morality,
why wouldn't I do something?"
-- John
Legend
"Ultimately, one of the best ways to take care of
our souls is to build a society that supports rather
than undermines our highest moral and spiritual intuitions
and inclinations. Yet, building that society can never
be divided from the daily practices through which
we live out our ethical and spiritual lives, both
in the way we treat others around us, and in the way
we nourish the God within us."
-- Rabbi
Michael Lerner
*
"...
plain, old, simple kindness: to other people, to your
family. Love for other people. I think that’s another
very important part of morality, being genuinely compassionate
and concerned about the feelings and well being of
other people, especially those that depend on you
directly."
-- George
McGovern
*
"As
believers we all have an opportunity and moral obligation
to recognize our spiritual common ground; to rise
above our differences; to combat prejudice and intolerance."
-- Queen
Noor of Jordan
"We
must have research for peace... It would embrace the
outstanding problems of morality. The time has come
for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over
the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism
… Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever
this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to
the human race."
-- Linus
Pauling
"There
is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing
bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing
boardrooms."
~ Robert
Reich
*
Widespread
intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for
leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations
in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership
should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging,
and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. -- Carl
Sagan
*
The spread of democracy is a wonderful thing—it is a
necessary foundation for peace—and it can happen. But
it cannot be advanced by force, and still less by the
creation of a new empire, an idea that is as unworkable
as it morally mistaken. Empire, the embodiment of force,
violates equity on a global scale. No lover of freedom
can give it support. It is especially contrary to the
founding principles of the United States.
-- Jonathan
Schell
Compassion
is the basis of all morality”
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
*There
is an ancient Indian saying: "We do not inherit the
earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."
If we use this ethic as a moral compass, then our
rendezvous with reality can also become a rendezvous
with opportunity.
~ Patricia
Schroeder
Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds
is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.
The right way is not always the popular and easy way.
Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true
test of moral character
-- Margaret
Chase Smith
*
...180 million kids are engaged in the worst forms
of child labour. Put it all together and it is not
only morally unacceptable, but politically dangerous.
-- Juan
Somavia
*
The Earth Charter is important as an expression of
the commitment of people throughout the Earth to evoke
their own deepest moral, spiritual and ethical principles
in the task of ensuring a sustainable future for those
who inhabit the Earth now and those who will follow
us on the Earth.
-- Maurice
Strong
"Aim
above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."
-- Henry
David Thoreau
It
is curious—curious that physical courage should be so
common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
-- Mark
Twain
*
It is absolutely sure that if globalization is not
founded on moral values not only will fail but will
bring about global calamities.
-- George
Vithoulkas
We
respect the dignity and the rights of every man and
every nation. The path to a brighter future of the
world leads through honest reconciliation of the conflicting
interests and not through hatred and bloodshed. To
follow that path means to enhance the moral power
of the all-embracing idea of human solidarity.
-- Lech
Walesa
*
There's
a moral convergence happening among religious leaders
on the issue of poverty"
-- Rev.
Jim Wallis
"A
new educational system in which all children born
shall have the same advantage of physical, industrial,
mental and moral culture, and thus be equally prepared
at maturity to enter upon active, responsible and
useful lives. . . . In so doing, it strikes a fatal
blow at . . . the most demoralizing of all monopolies.
. . educational superiority."
-- Victoria
Woodhull
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