#morality

Morality, as has often been pointed out, is antecedent to religion-it even exists in a rudimentary form among animals. ↗

— Herbert Read

#been #even #exists #form #morality

Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul. ↗

— Karl Jaspers

#mean #morality #philosophy #practice #produces

The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil. ↗

— Georges Bataille

#between #ceaselessly #decisive #essence #evil

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#usefulness #life

The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#books #life #morality #youth #age

The popular concept–that we should each determine our own morality–is based on the belief that the spiritual realm is nothing at all like the rest of the world. Does anyone really believe that? For many years after each of the morning and evening Sunday services I remained in the auditorium for another hour to field questions. Hundreds of people stayed for the give-and-take discussions. One of the most frequent statements I heard was that 'Every person has to define right and wrong for him- or herself.' I always responded to the speakers by asking, 'Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?' They would invariable say, 'Yes, of course.' Then I would ask, “Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is "there" that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?' Almost always, the response to that question was silence, either a thoughtful or a grumpy one. ↗

— Timothy Keller

#postmodernism #age

It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption. ↗

— H. Rider Haggard

#amorality #corruption #cynicism #growing-old #hopelessness

And a human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea. ↗

— James Agee

#morality #morals #right #social-justice #society

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility...According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#christianity #morality #anger

There is, after all, no moral difference between the bigot and the tolerator. They are from case to case positive or negative. One man is bigoted because he was given the sword of truth, another because he is angered in thoughtlessness; then, one man is tolerant because he was given the flag of peace, another because he is cowardly and wishes to hide all guilt. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bigotry #cowardice #differentiation #flag #guilt