Intuitive Ethics Quotes

The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murder'd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules. ~ William Blake

Of course, almost ali people, guided by the traditional manner of dealing with ethical precepts, peremptorily repudiate such an explanation of the issue. Social institutions, they assert, must be just. It is base to judge them merely according to their fitness to attain definite ends, however desirable these ends may be from any other point of view. What matters first is justice. The extreme formulation of this idea is to be found in the famous phrase: fiai fustitia, pereat mundus. Let justice be done, even if it destroys the world. Most supporters of the postulate of justice will reject this maxim as extravagant, absurd, and paradoxical. But it is not more absurd, merely more shocking, than any other reference to an arbitrary notion of absolute justice. It clearly shows the fallacies of the methods applied in the discipline of intuitive ethics. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Virtue theory, which is also called aretaic ethics (from the Greek term arete, "virtue"), holds that morality is more than simply doing the right thing. The foundational moral claims made by the virtue theorist concern the moral agent (the person doing the action), not the act that the agent performs. ~ Scott B. Rae

In the midst of a culture that is rationally organized for a vocational workaday life, there is hardly any room for the cultivation of acosmic brotherliness, unless it is among strata who are economically carefree. Under the technical and social conditions of rational culture, an imitation of the life of Buddha, Jesus, or Francis seems condemned to failure for purely external reasons. ~ Max Weber

What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophesy or as poesy ... should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open up new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. ~ Margaret Fuller

I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' ... The twenty-five percent is for error. ~ Linus Pauling

Work ethic is the most important component of being successful. ~ Kliff Kingsbury

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

becoming an ageless goddess means letting go of the fear that you aren't smart enough, educated enough, or intuitive enough to make the right decisions for yourself. ~ Christiane Northrup

He awoke in the evening completely refreshed. After a cold shower, Bond walked over to the Casino. Since the night before he had lost the mood of the tables. He needed to re-establish that focus which is half mathematical and half intuitive and which, with a slow pulse and a sanguine temperament, Bond knew to be the essential equipment of any gambler who was set on winning. ~ Ian Fleming

The supernatural worldview is causing a great number of otherwise intelligent people to cling to a collection of atavistic concepts that have not, and never will serve humanity in any ultimately beneficial way. Any benefits that spirituality ostensibly provides to its adherents, can be found equally in the worldview of philosophy and ethics, communities of other kinds, and so on. It's a myth that the only morality, hope, purpose and comfort to be found, resides only in the supernatural. ~ Kelli Jae Baeli

We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Angels can help us understand what intuition means in a personal way. Angels are actually in charge of a large part of our intuitive self. Viewing intuition from the perspective of angel consciousness, we can say that intuition is our way of tapping into a higher power for guidance and awareness. ~ Terry Taylor

Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers
and most others in the profession
will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it. ~ Alan Dershowitz

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence. ~ Aristotle.

Ethics must be reintroduced to public service to restore people's faith in government. Without such faith, democracy cannot flourish. Your ambitious agenda is filling a desperate need. ~ Walter Cronkite

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

Makes no difference," he said, with his intuitive knowledge of my thoughts. "No difference at all how your first marriage was. This is my marriage, and I want my wife in my bed." I laughed aloud and snuggled back into his arms. "It's where I want to be," I confessed. "Why would I ever want to be anywhere else? ~ Philippa Gregory

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous. ~ Peter Kreeft

We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power? -is it better to be good, or to be strong? ~ Will Durant

Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart," Valentine's voice was soft. "One simple motion. Nothing you haven't done before."
Jace met his father's stare with a level gaze. "I saw Agramon," he said. "It had your face."
"You saw Agramon?" The Soul-Sword glittered as Valentine moved toward his son. "And you lived?"
"I killed it."
"You killed the Demon of Fear, but you won't kill a single vampire, not even at my order?"
Jace stood watching Valentine without expression. "He's a vampire, that's true," he said. "But his name is Simon. ~ Cassandra Clare

[About Jews] Among other nations, the vital problems are: a good crop, extension of the boundaries, strong armies, colonies; among us, if we wish to be true to ourselves, the vital questions are: conscience, freedom, culture, ethics. ~ I.L. Peretz

[At the scene of a murder]
The cats' bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young
well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting
for a human to brutally maim one of the own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie (the cats), a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans that way. ~ Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Peace is something that comes from within. It is
created by your willingness to accept yourself. ~ Jason Nelson

There are people who will tell you that the ends justify the means, right up until they're talking about their own ends. Then, suddenly, morals and ethics matter. Funny thing, that. - Dr. Shannon ~ Mira Grant

Birds needs trees and mankind needs both of them! Protecting the nature and environment is not only a matter of ethics but also a matter of existence. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to day that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother. ~ William Shakespeare

Even at school I studied ethics instead of religion. ~ Ville Valo

It does take some confidence, especially for the lay person, to feel that their intuitive understanding that the difference between white rice and brown rice is so small that it really doesn't matter what Harvard's computer says. ~ Richard David Feinman

While there is such a thing as correctness in ethics, in interpretation, in mathematics, the way to understand that is not by trying to model it on the ways in which we get things right in physics ... ~ Hilary Putnam

Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for. ~ Harold S. Kushner

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence. ~ Sam Harris

Is Christian ethics merely a specific set of Christian answers to the question of good and evil, right and wrong? To make it no more than this is to forget that man's fall was a fall into the knowledge of good and evil, reinforced by the inexorable knowledge of a condemning law, and that man's restoration in Christ is a restoration to freedom and grace, to a love that needs no law since it knows and does only what is in accord with love and with God. To imprison ethics in the realm of division, of good and evil, right and wrong, is to condemn it to sterility, and rob it of its real reason for existing, which is love. Love cannot be reduced to one virtue among many others prescribed by ethical imperatives. When love is only "a virtue" among many, man forgets that "God is love" and becomes incapable of that all-embracing love by which we secretly begin to know God as our Creator and Redeemer - who has saved us from the limitations of a purely restrictive and aimless existence "under a law."

So Bonhoeffer says very rightly: "In the knowledge of good and evil man does not understand himself in the reality of the destiny appointed in his origin, but rather in his own possibilities, his possibility of being good or evil. He knows himself now as something apart from God, outside God, and this means that he now knows only himself and no longer knows God at all…. The knowledge of good and evil is therefore separation from God. Only against God can man know good and evil. ~ Thomas Merton

The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. ~ Henry David Thoreau

For the law is not jurisprudence, not a weighty tome full of articles, not philosophical treatises, not peevish nonsense about justice, not hackneyed platitudes about morality and ethics. The law means safe paths and highways. It means backstreets one can walk along even after sundown. It means inns and taverns one can leave to visit the privy, leaving one's purse on the table and one's wife beside it. The law is the sleep of people certain they'll be woken by the crowing of the rooster and not the crashing of burning roof timbers! And for those who break the law; the noose, the axe, the stake and the red-hot iron! Punishments which deter others. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

Even though Scientology sees itself as the authority on ethics and responsibility, obscuring the truth is built into its core. ~ Leah Remini

Becky Chabot, a PhD candidate in religious and theological studies at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, centered her dissertation on the social ethics of professional club soccer (and her fan typology) on the DBG, ~ Phil West

Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in a fairly similar way (as running up against paradox). This running up against the limits of language is ethics. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein