Morally Valuable Quotes

We proclaim human intelligence to be morally valuable per se because we are human. If we were birds, we would proclaim the ability to fly as morally valuable per se. If we were fish, we would proclaim the ability to live underwater as morally valuable per se. But apart from our obviously self-interested proclamations, there is nothing morally valuable per se about human intelligence. ~ Gary L. Francione

Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. ~ Janet Malcolm

It's hard to accept that you've missed out on a person, that all you'll ever know of them are pieced-together stories. It's not like missing out on a party or a concert-those are temporary experiences, and you'll have other opportunities. But this is permanent. It's like being robbed of something valuable you never had the privilege to own. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence - neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish - it is an imponderably valuable gift. ~ Maya Angelou

The danger of refusing to reflect upon the psychological dynamics of faith and belief is that what we feel to be self evidently true, for psychological reasons, might be, upon inspection, highly questionable, intellectually or morally. Too often, as we all know, the 'feeling of rightness' trumps sober reflection and moral discernment. Further, we are often unwilling to listen to others until we are, to some degree, psychologically open to persuasion. The Parable of the Sower comes to mind. ~ Richard Beck

Were I to throw my thoughts on this subject," said my good father-in-law, as he began to enter more warmly into the debates, drawing his chair opposite Worthy, and raising his hand with a poetical enthusiasm - "Were I to throw my thoughts on this subject into an Allegory, I would describe the human mind as an extensive plain, and knowledge as the river that should water it. If the course of the river be properly directed, the plain will be fertilized and cultivated to advantage; but if books, which are the sources that feed this river, rush into it from every quarter, it will overflow its banks, and the plain will become inundated: When, therefore, knowledge flows on in its proper channel, this extensive and valuable field, the mind, instead of being covered with stagnant waters, is cultivated to the utmost advantage, and blooms luxuriantly into a general efflorescence - for a river properly restricted by high banks, is necessarily progressive. ~ William Hill Brown

I know the mind, like the parachute, is most valuable open. ~ Dan S. Kennedy

Pride is a ridiculous thing, but when you're in desperate straits and it's all you have left, it becomes your most valuable asset. ~ Manel Loureiro

David Frankfurter's valuable, well-written study takes us to the far reaches of demonology. In documenting the harm done by labeling others evil, he poses a challenge to those of us who believe, however regretfully, in the necessity of the concept. ~ Robert Jay Lifton

I don't think being a lawyer is more or less valuable than being a writer. ~ Emily Gould

A fish is more valuable swimming in the sea maintaining the integrity of oceanic eco-systems than it is on anyone's plate. ~ Paul Watson

What my work is about is, 'Can something that is not an inanimate object be considered valuable?' ~ Tino Sehgal

Seeing with better eyes We can recognize that the offender is a valuable human being who struggles with the same needs, pressures, and confusions that we struggle with. We will recognize that the incident really may not have been about us in the first place. Instead it was about the wrongdoer's misguided attempt to meet his or her own needs. As we regard offenders from this point of view (regardless of whether they repent and regardless of what they have done or suffered), we will be in a position to forgive them. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Oh this? It's a 'bookworm.'
They live in books, and they love to eat important or valuable words. ~ CLAMP

As far as I know, the question of whether and how it could be strategically or morally justified was never the subject of open debate in Germany after 1945, no doubt mainly because a nation which had murdered and worked to death millions of people in its camps could hardly call on the victorious powers to explain the military and political logic that dictated the destruction of the German cities. ~ W.G. Sebald

Stories themselves have spirit and being, and they have a way of communicating on different levels. The story itself communicates with us regardless of what language it is told in. Of course stories are always funnier and more vivid when they are told in their original language by a good storyteller. But what I love about stories is they can survive and continue in some form or other resembling themselves regardless of how good or how bad the storyteller is, no matter what language they are told or written in. This is because the human brain favors stories or the narrative form as a primary means of organizing and relating human experience. Stories contain large amounts of valuable information even when they storyteller forgets or invents details. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko

We have learned that the things we amassed to prove to ourselves how valuable, how important, how successful we were, didn't prove it at all. In fact, they have very little to do with it. It's what's inside of us, not what's outside of us that counts. ~ Joan D. Chittister

I also don't think that parents should pay for their children's graduate or law school. Helping a student with a four-year bachelor's degree is very generous, but an advanced degree should be considered a personal responsibility. That will ensure that the coursework is taken very seriously and makes the young person take ownership of their degree. and when they graduate, it's a shared accomplishment that the whole family can be proud of. But do not encourage graduate school just for graduate school's sake. Work experience is much more valuable if the decision come down to that. ~ Dana Perino

I think that having the years in college to really focus on your training is incredibly valuable. College shapes the kind of person/actor that one becomes. ~ Rachel Hoffman

They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation. ~ Gary L. Francione

Just look around! This immense universe is functioning so perfectly well that nothing can be added to it. It needs no improvement. Seeing this, one relaxes. If stars can go on dancing and flowers can go on blooming and birds can go on singing, why not you? You also belong to this universe. You are part of it. In fact, you are the most valuable part of it, the greatest flowering is going to happen in you - the flowering of consciousness, the golden flower of being. ~ Osho

Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. ~ John F. Kennedy

Sometimes it can be really hard in our fast paced society to slow ourselves down enough to begin to listen to God's voice. The dilemma exists in my position as well. To be a follower of Christ is to emulate Him. When He went off alone into the desert to pray, He was teaching a valuable lesson. ~ Jon Foreman

This school is based on the idea that a man who can think correctly will automatically behave morally - or ~ Robert A. Heinlein

When a law isn't just, I believe it's okay to disobey it. In fact, I believe we are morally obliged to disobey it. ~ Stacey Lee

For something to be great, there has to be some kind of trial or some type of struggle that actually makes it special or valuable to you. Otherwise, anything could be easily taken for granted. ~ Hayley Williams

Aiming at health, restoring health - that is a goal that is both morally important and limited, because it aims at the restoration of normal human functioning, which is an important part of human flourishing. ~ Michael Sandel

Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo
... Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage. ~ M.R. James

It's not how many hours you put in with a client or on a project. It's the quantity and quality of your energy - your focus and force - that determine whether that time is valuable. ~ Jim Loehr

It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If you work to obtain your goal, and realize from the very beginning that nothing valuable comes easily, and still forge ahead, without a doubt you'll reach your goal, whatever it is. ~ V.C. Andrews

Shall I tell you why young men love war? ... In peace, there are a hundred questions with a thousand answers! In war, there is only one question with one right answer ... Going to war makes you a man. It is emotionally exciting and morally restful. ~ Mary Doria Russell

When you have an idea, it is like carbon. It has potential. To make it into a diamond, you need to put in hard work. When you have a diamond, it may not be perfect. You need to polish it, improve it. Only then is it valuable. ~ Rohan Kulkarni

If you can look at your failure and answer yes to the questions, "Did I give it my absolute best effort?" and "Have I learned something valuable?" then you have failed in the right way. By these standards, I've failed many times in my career. But every failure has made me stronger and wiser. Inevitably, success has always followed. ~ Ian Anthony Dale

People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure. ~ David Attenborough

T's one of history's many valuable lessons: the foot soldiers tend to be the casualties in any conflict, not the generals. ~ Mark Mills

The problem with memories is they get more valuable with time,
and the places we keep them get weaker with age. ~ Michael Xavier

If we are lucky enough, as I am, to be from time to time in quite close contact with young people, they can sometimes make it easier to hang on to this notion when they function, as every person does vis-a-vis every other person they come up against, as a mirror.
Always we are being reflected in the eyes of others. Are we silly or sensible, stupid or clever, bad or good, unattractive or sexy...? We never stop being at least slightly aware of, if not actively searching for, answers to such questions, and are either deflated or elated, in extreme cases ruined or saved, by what we get. So if when you are old a beloved child happens to look at you as if he or she thinks (even if mistakenly!) that you are wise and kind: what a blessing! It's not that such a fleeting glimpse of yourself can convert you into wiseness and kindness in any enduring way; more like a good session of reflexology which, although it can cure nothing, does make you feel like a better person while it's going on and for an hour or two afterwards, and even that is well worth having.
The more frequent such shots of self-esteem are, the more valuable they become, so there is a risk - remote, but possible - of their becoming addictive. An old person who doesn't enjoy having young people in her life must be a curmudgeon, but it is extremely important that she should remember that risk and watch her step. Or he, his. ~ Diana Athill

Thus no other object on earth is as valuable as the Bible, for nothing else can provide anything as essential or eternal. ~ Donald S. Whitney

Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind. ~ Andre Maurois

The most popular form of atheism is a philosophy called naturalism. Naturalism is the view that science and science alone determines what exists. What exists is what our best scientific theories of the world require. If something is not required by our best scientific theories of the world, then it does not exist. But this is devastating for ethics because moral values are not required by science. Science is morally neutral. You cannot find moral values in a test tube. So it follows immediately, from the perspective of naturalism, that moral values do not really exist. They are just subjective illusions of human beings. ~ William Lane Craig