#morality

[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky'. Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon - such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas. ↗

— Arthur Miller

#christianity #morality #religion #change

The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. ↗

— C.G. Jung

#morality #psychology #reason #intelligence

If the Bahreini royal family can have an embassy, a state, and a seat at the UN, why should the twenty-five million Kurds not have a claim to autonomy? The alleviation of their suffering and the assertion of their self-government is one of the few unarguable benefits of regime change in Iraq. It is not a position from which any moral retreat would be allowable. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#autonomy #bahrain #iraq #iraq-war #kurdish-people

I have attended church regularly since I was less than a week old. I've listened to sermons about virtue, sermons against vice. I have heard about money, time management, tithing, abstinence, and generosity. I've listened to thousands of sermons. But I could count on one hand the number of sermons that were a simple proclamation of the gospel of Christ. ↗

— Rich Mullins

#morality #preaching #money

A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison. ↗

— Simone de Beauvoir

#existentialism #morality #freedom

I just think people should find the music that helps them through the day and enjoy that. I've never felt like, if somebody does or doesn't like what I'm doing, it's a morality issue. ↗

— Amy Grant

#does #doing #enjoy #felt #find

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#established #faith #liberty #morality #nor

Tell me,' asked Stas, 'what is a wicked deed?' 'If anyone takes away Kali's cow,' he answered after a brief reflection, 'that then is a wicked deed.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed Stas, 'and what is a good one?' This time the answer came without any reflection: 'If Kali takes away the cow of somebody else, that is a good deed.' Stas was too young to perceive that similar views of evil and good deeds were enunciated in Europe not only by politicians but by whole nations. ↗

— Henryk Sienkiewicz

#good-and-evil #morality #political-philosophy #political-science #religion

There is a tone of morality throughout the rural districts of England, which is unhappily wanting in the large towns and the centres of particular manufactures. ↗

— Henry Mayhew

#districts #england #large #manufactures #morality

I do not listen when anyone uses the word immoral," said the Wizard. "In the young it is ridiculous, in the old it is sententious and reactionary and an early warning sign of apoplexy. In the middle-aged, who love and fear the idea of moral life the most, it is hypocritical. ↗

— Gregory Maguire

#morality #age