Moral Choices Quotes

Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free. ~ John Pilger

We're nothing but human.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery we need humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
Don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
You are not machines.
You are not cattle.
You have the love of humanity in your hearts.
In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We don't want to hate and despise one another.
We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
You the people have the power.. the power to create machines.. the power to create happiness.
You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful..
To make this life a wonderful adventure.
We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices.
Some are on a grand scale.. Most of these choices are on lesser points.
But we define ourselves by the choices we have made.
We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices.
Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly.
Human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design ~ Anonymous

The thing I like about the sci-fi genre is that you get to examine universal themes and polarizing moral choices. The characters have a lot on their shoulders and are often trying to survive in some very difficult and hostile environments. ~ Jaime Murray

The law is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the due process clause, the courts will be very busy indeed. ~ Byron White

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. ~ Joel Stein

The point of protesting about 'moral equivalence' is surely not to blur moral choices on 'our side'. Is it? ~ Christopher Hitchens

"Teachers" ... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not by imposing their own moralities on them but by positing situations that pose hard moral choices and then encouraging conflict and debate. They seek to help students rise to higher stages of moral reasoning and hence to higher levels of principled judgment. ~ James MacGregor Burns

power is not the point, responsibility is the point and at the heart of responsibility always are moral choices. In what we do, in what we say, what we stand for, we must feel, as did the founders of the nation, as did the founders of this college, that it is the example of America that matters. So ~ David McCullough

Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. ~ C.S. Lewis

All humankind is born of the same inner goodness and fundamental ruthlessness as all the other creatures of nature. Man can never totally divorce himself from the beast that comprises part of his essential nature. It is not that our inner natures are entirely self-centered or completely filled with goodness. We can choose to make moral or immoral choices. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The truth is, no matter how trying they become, babies two and under don't have the ability to make moral choices, so they can't be bad. That category only exists in the adult mind. ~ Anne Cassidy

In his book After Virtue, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre likened the present cultural moment to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. He argued that the West has abandoned reason and the tradition of the virtues in giving itself over to the relativism that is now flooding our world today. We are governed not by faith, or by reason, or by any combination of the two. We are governed by what MacIntyre called emotivism: the idea that all moral choices are nothing more than expressions of what the choosing individual feels is right. MacIntyre ~ Rod Dreher

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more ~ Woody Allen

The freedom to make moral choices is the most important freedom we have; the freedom to act on our moral choices is the most important privilege we can claim. ~ Ann Furedi

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a more direct bearing on the moral choices made by individuals or the purposes pursued by society than belief or disbelief in God. ~ Ravi Zacharias

God doesn't judge by internal disease but by moral choices. We must protect our hearts. ~ Patti Callahan

both observing and breaking the rules involve moral choices, and both courses of action reveal something important about the individual involved. Contrary ~ Glenn Greenwald

The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. ~ Oswald Chambers

Everyone makes moral choices that better themselves and hurt someone else along the way - and whether or not the means justify the ends. And that, to me, is universal. ~ George Clooney

Let's just call things what they are. When a man's love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice. ~ Matthew Scully

This conditioning of children to fear nonconformity and blindly obey ensures continued obedience as adults. The difficult task of learning how to make moral choices, how to accept personal responsibility, how to deal with the chaos of human life is handed over to God-like authority figures. The process makes possible a perpetuation of childhood. It allows the adult to bask in the warm glow and magic of divine protection. It masks from them and from others the array of human weaknesses, including our deepest dreads, our fear of irrelevance and death, our vulnerability and uncertainty. It also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build mature, loving relationships, for the believer is told it is all about them, about their needs, their desires, and above all, their protection and advancement. Relationships, even within families, splinter and fracture. Those who adopt the belief system, who find in the dictates of the church and its male leaders a binary world of right and wrong, build an exclusive and intolerant comradeship that subtly or overtly shuns and condemns the "unsaved." People are no longer judged by their intrinsic qualities, by their actions or capacity for self-sacrifice and compassion, but by the rigidity of their obedience. This defines the good and the bad, the Christian and the infidel. And this obedience is a blunt and effective weapon against the possibility of a love that could overpower the dictates of the hierarchy. In many ways it is love the leaders ~ Chris Hedges

As material beings we belong wholly to the natural world. We are therefore subject to causal relations. As such, we have no free will. But as rational beings we have a part in what Kant calls das Ding an sich -- that is, the world as it exists in itself, independent of our sensory impressions. Only when we follow our 'practical reason' -- which enables us to make moral choices -- do we exercise our free will, because when we conform to moral law, it is we who make the law we are conforming to. ~ Jostein Gaarder

We're moving towards such a strange time.A time when all our moral choices will be complicated and compromised by our love of progress ~ Michel Faber

Men are free to decide their own moral choices, but they are also under the necessity to account to God for those choices. That makes them both free and also bound – for they are bound to come to judgment and give an account of the deeds done in the body. ~ A.W. Tozer

In my approaching old age, I am now supposed to share with you what life has taught me, and in the end to encapsulate for you what is the meaning of life. From where I am now, I find that these conundrums are easily answered. First, life teaches us that, whether we perceive it as predestined or as random, it is beyond any person's control. Second, there is no template for the meaning of life. Instead, the meaning of life is what you choose to make it mean. In making your choice, when you reach my age, your journey becomes an affirmation of the warning that life is a consequence of our moral choices. ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

Why Not You?

Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?

Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?

Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?

Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?

Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you?

Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you?

Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you?

Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you?

Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you?

Today, many will take t ~ Steve Maraboli

[The war on terrorism isn't a religious war, but] a defense of our right to make moral choices, to seek fellowship with God that is chosen and not commanded. ~ John Ashcroft

As a believer and a pantheist, I worship God not through fear and trembling but through awe and wonder at the workings of the universe - for the universe is God. I pray to God not to ask for things but to become one with God. I recognize that the knowledge of good and evil that the God of Genesis so feared humans might attain begins with the knowledge that good and evil are not metaphysical things but moral choices. I root my moral choices neither in fear of eternal punishment nor in hope of eternal reward. I recognize the divinity of the world and every being in it and respond to everyone and everything as though they were God - because they are. And I understand that the only way I can truly know God is by relying on the only thing I can truly know: myself. ~ Reza Aslan

Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice. ~ Anita Roddick

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing does dome tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup is probably d ~ C.S. Lewis

People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices ~ Gary L. Francione

Our political discourse has degenerated into anxieties about whether giving benefits to those people over there will take money out of the pockets of my kind of people over here, even when the changes are those from which we would all benefit."

"The church is one of the few remaining institutions in the American scene that normalizes the effects of slavery, with most Christians preserving these segregated spaces in the interests of cultural comfort. Racially separate churches violate the interdependence that should characterize authentic Christian communities. Further, this individualism blocks churches from the blessings of gifts preserved in separate traditions. For example, segregated white churches celebrate the confessions and the rich legacies of the intellectual giants of the faith, but too often preach a weak and disembodied gospel that reduces spirituality to symbolism, and that separates material concerns from moral choices and the pursuit of righteousness."

"Indeed, we have reached a sad state of affairs when we are all unwilling to be challenged when we go to church."


"We should not move too quickly to a cheap reconciliation that forgets the past rather than honoring it as a clay vessel that contains a refined treasure bearing witness to the presence of Jesus at the margins. We need to make space for the histories of ethnic pain to be shared and revered among whites and all peoples of color, and to be instructed by them. Tha ~ Love L. Sechrest

I was faced with a choice: to deny my addiction and embrace that 'comfortably numb' but 'magicless' existence, or accept the burden of insight, take the road less travelled, and embark on the often painful journey to discover who I was and where I fit. ~ Roger Waters

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what. ~ William Stanley Jevons

Nurses have new and expanding roles. They are case managers, helping patients navigate the maze of health care choices and develop plans of care. They are patient educators who focus on preventative care in a multitude of settings outside hospitals. And they are leaders, always identifying ways for their practice to improve. Because nurses have the most direct patient care, they have much influence on serious treatment decisions. It is a very high stakes job. Everyone wants the best nurse for the job, and that equates to the best educated nurse. ~ Judi Evans

One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible. ~ William James

Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. ~ Theodor W. Adorno

Americans are coming to their senses, and the libertarian theory of society and government is pointing the way. The times change, but the enduring principles that help us to interpret and understand the world do not. It remains true now, as then, as in the future, saecula saeculorum, that government provides neither an effective nor a moral means for solving any human problem. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell

I don't have a moral plan, I'm a Canadian. ~ David Cronenberg

The journey of success requires a map for effective navigation. Establish a destination by defining what you want. Once you have a destination, take physical action by making choices that move you towards that destination. ~ Steve Maraboli

Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil ... ~ Abraham Lincoln

There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. It's the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants; it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves. ~ Joseph Sobran

Ethics occupies a central place in philosophy because it is concerned with sin, with the origin of good and evil and with moral valuations. And since these problems have a universal significance, the sphere of ethics is wider than is generally supposed. It deals with meaning and value and its province is the world in which the distinction between good and evil is drawn, evaluations are made and meaning is sought. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

What are some of the choices you've made that made you who you are? ~ Timothy Ferriss

The energy that was buried with the rise of the Christian nations must come back into the world; nothing can prevent it. Many of us, I think, both long to see this happen and are terrified of it, for though this transformation contains the hope of liberation, it also imposes a necessity for great change. But in order to deal with the untapped and dormant force of the previously subjugated, in order to survive as a human, moving, moral weight in the world, America and all the Western nations will be forced to reexamine themselves and release themselves from many thing that are now taken to be sacred, and to discard nearly all the assumptions that have been used to justify their lives and their anguish and their crimes so long. ~ James Baldwin

Limits are possibilities ... Formal restrictions, contrary to what you might think, free you up by allowing you to concentrate on purer ideas ... You can be crippled by too many choices, especially if you don't know what your goals are. ~ Chip Kidd

Hamas married the Iranians. It was their choice. They are the same family. ~ Shimon Peres

Once upon a time, there was a clear set of choices that people made. Now there are so many choices of how to think, how to define ourselves. ~ Tamar Jacoby

After all, tomorrow will be prettier than today. It all depends on your choices and actions, and if you are ready to make it. ~ Debasish Mridha

Moral power is probably best when it is not used. The less you use it the more you have. ~ Andrew Young

When you know your intention, you are in a position to choose the consequences that you will create for yourself. When you choose an intention that creates consequences for which you are willing to be responsible, that is a responsible choice. ~ Gary Zukav

It is an open question whether or not "liberal democracy" in its present form can provide a thought-world of sufficient moral substance to sustain meaningful lives. This is precisely the question that Vaclav Havel, then newly elected as president of Czechoslovakia, posed in an address to the U.S. Congress. "We still don't know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics," he said. "We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of our actions - if they are to be moral - is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success." What Havel is saying is that it is not enough for his nation to liberate itself from one flawed theory; it is necessary to find another, and he worries that Technopoly provides no answer. To ~ Neil Postman

In England, we have a curious institution called the Church of England. Its strength has always been in the fact that on any moral or political issue it can produce such a wide divergence of opinion that nobody
from the Pope to Mao Tse-tung
can say with any confidence that he is not an Anglican. Its weaknesses are that nobody pays much attention to it and very few people attend its functions. ~ Auberon Waugh

I am stubbornly proud of my sexuality. To anyone who has looked down on me from a moral high ground , I say, "I am not a lady. Never have been, don't care to be." I have flirted unabashedly. I've been hungry and demanding; I've told more than a few lovers how to pleasure me in no uncertain terms. ~ Anna Camilleri

The history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called "responsibility", which in turn rests on an error called "freedom of the will". ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing you had much better leave him alone. ~ Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

It has always been possible to say "The moral emptiness of today's world is appalling." ~ Georges Bataille

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Too often, I believe, liberals deny that poverty is linked to bad choices. ~ Nicholas Kristof

People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology. Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview. ~ Mitt Romney

Money will not buy you long-term happiness, but money will give you choices. ~ Steve Repak

... if geometry were as much opposed to our passions and present interests as is ethics, we should contest it and violate I but little less, notwithstanding all the demonstrations of Euclid and Archimedes ... ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

It wasn't the tattoo that had changed her, had given her repossession of her body. It was her actions, her choices. It was finding the path when it looked like there weren't any paths to be found. ~ Melissa Marr

...the future is not written. It lies in the choices you make. Our future is ours to decide. Always. ~ Matt Myklusch

I was twenty when I discovered war and photography. I can't say that I wanted to bear witness and change the world. I had no good moral reasons: I just loved adventure, I loved the poetry of war, the poetry of chaos, and I found that there was a kind of grace in weaving between the bullets. ~ Luc Delahaye

To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends. It is for this reason that to the liberal neither moral nor religious ideals are proper objects of coercion, while both conservatives and socialists recognize no such limits. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

Where there is a choice of two evils, most men take both. ~ Austin O'Malley

You have behaved in an exemplary manner until now. Even when you could have gained by doing something wrong, you refrained from doing so. You didn't fall prey to the logic of doing a small wrong for the sake of the greater good; of the ends justifying the means. That takes moral courage. ~ Amish Tripathi

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view. ~ Khushwant Singh

It's all about being flexible, and avoiding choices whenever possible. Choices suck, they are inherently limiting. ~ Craig Armstrong

Don't let the poor choices you made negate the years you spent loving him. ~ Christine Brae