Right And Wrong In Philosophy Quotes

Do you feel no compunction, Socrates, at having followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death penalty?'
I might fairly reply to him, 'You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action
that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one. ~ Socrates

The status of philosophy is such that it is not the case that you cannot be wrong in philosophy but that it is very difficult to be right. (p.12) ~ Peter Worley

Rights can be considered wrongs, depending on who is judging. ~ Suzy Kassem

What gives you the right? "What right?" "The right to be the arbiter of what is good." "Great knowledge. Great position." "No. Wrong. That does not give you the right. No matter what good you might do, you can't pretend to be Jesus or whatever you want to think of yourself. You don't get to pick the winners. You don't get to change our fate and take our will from us." "Natasha, I don't think you--" "You say you're about doing good and helping villages and being altruistic, but I know what you're really about, Prophet. You and everyone else in the present and the future who wants to be God... You just want power. ~ Nathan Edmondson

Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

Witches married outside their species all the time, especially before the Turn. There were perfectly acceptable options: adoption, artificial insemination, borrowing your best friend's boyfriend for a night. Issues of what was morally right and wrong tended not to matter when you found yourself in love with a man you couldn't tell you weren't human. It sort of went with the whole hiding-among-humans-for-the-last-five-thousand-years thing. ~ Kim Harrison

If I should say that he is a victim of injustice, then I would be asking by implication for sympathy; and if one insists upon looking at this boy as a victim of injustice, he will be swamped by a feeling of guilt so strong as to be indistinguishable from hate. Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them, the condemning sense of guilt. And this is true of all men- whether they be white or black -it is a peculiar and powerful, but common need. ~ Richard Wright

There was a parallel universe that ran alongside the normal world, and if you went through the wrong door, or turned left instead of right, ran up the street instead of down it, you could accidentally push the curtain aside and end up in that other place, where everything was different and everything was wrong. That ~ Jennifer Weiner

Reed was involved in some of our most famous duck hunts; he even has a blind named after him. It's called the Reed Robertson Hole. One year, we were having a really bad duck season. It was hot and there always seemed to be southwest winds, which aren't ideal conditions on Phil's property. One Sunday, the forecast called for more southwest winds, so nobody wanted to go hunting. I wasn't going to pass up a morning in the duck blind, so I decided to take Reed with me. My expectations were so low that I was really only taking him to see the sunrise. I was convinced we wouldn't see a single duck.
Well, it got to be daylight and nothing happened. But we were still spending quality time together, and I was talking to him about God and the outdoors. I looked up and saw two birds. I literally thought it was two crows flying overhead. But then I realized it was two mallard drakes. I called them and they made two passes over our blind before backpedaling right in front of us. They seemed to stop in motion about ten feet in front of us.
"Shoot!" I said.
Reed raised his gun and shot three times in less than three seconds. Apparently, he still believed his shotgun was an AK-47. He went boom! Boom! Boom! By the time Reed was gone, I raised my gun and shot both of them. He looked at me and was like, "What happened?" He looked at his gun and thought something was wrong with it.
"Son, you got excited and fired too quickly," I said. "You've got to get on the duck."
As s ~ Jase Robertson

The information age has off-loaded a great deal of the work previously done by people we could call information specialists onto all of the rest of us. We are doing the jobs of ten different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our favorite TV shows. It's no wonder that sometimes one memory gets confounded with another, leading us to show up in the right place but on the wrong day, or to forget something as simple as where we last put our glasses or the remote. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

Ladies, your power can influence for right or wrong, for victory or defeat. Remember, people have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be, not what you nag them to be. Speak to the fool in your child, and the fool will stand up. Speak to the champion in your child, and the champion will stand up. Speak to the fool in your husband, and the fool will stand up; but speak to the king in your husband, and he'll hurt himself trying to please you. ~ Jentezen Franklin

Noone has yet succeeded in inventing a philosophy at once credible and self-consistent. Locke aimed at credibility, and achieved it at the expense of consistency. Most of the great philosophers have done the opposite. A philosophy which is not self-consistent cannot be wholly true, but a philosophy which is self-consistent can very well be wholly false. The most fruitful philosophies have contained glaring inconsistencies, but for that very reason have been partially true. There is no reason to suppose that a self-consistent system contains more truth than one which, like Locke's, is more or less wrong. ~ Bertrand Russell

The biggest evildoers in the world, the ones who do what's not right, are the ones who have all the power, and that's what makes it right. It's right not 'cause you say so, or I say, or even if the Lord on high says so. It's right 'cause them what's got the money and the power, they say it's right, and that makes it right even if it's dead wrong. Dead wrong. ~ Peter David

There are people in the world who like to be right all the time. They're the same people who, when you tell them something, immediately google it to see if you're right. And if you correct them, and they discover that you're right, they'll come up with an excuse as to why they're wrong. Those people are a real pain in the ass. ~ Steve McHugh

Condoning and condemning are both wrong for the same reasons: they refuse to take seriously the integrity of the other person, and to accept the fact that personal choice has personal consequences; they refuse to accept children as persons in their own right and not just extensions of the parent; and they refuse to take seriously the promises of God, to believe that God is capable of bringing good out of evil, healing out of suffering, peace out of disorder, resurrection out of crucifixion. They refuse to believe in Jesus Christ. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Still I know that I am a million times more worthless in my soul than she is, and that her lofty feelings--are as sincere as a heavenly angel's! That's the tragedy, that I know it for certain. What's wrong with declaiming a little? Am I not declaiming? But I am sincere, I really am sincere. As for Ivan, I can understand with what a curse he must look at nature now, and with his intelligence, too! To whom, to what has the preference been given? It has been given to a monster, who even here, already a fiancé and with all eyes looking at him, was not able to refrain from debaucheries--and that right in front of his fiancée, right in front of his fiancée! And a man like me is preferred, and he is rejected. Why? Because a girl wants to violate her life and destiny, out of gratitude! Absurd! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it. ~ Leo Tolstoy

We've got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ~ Tim Wirth

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
[The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1995: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management and the District of Columbia of the Committee on Governmental Affairs (1996)] ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can't both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn't fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction. ~ C.S. Lewis

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 18-something-or-nother. The year doesn't matter.They considered it the turning point of the war, and President Lincoln showed up to give his big speech. Who really cares what it was called? I don't. After it was all over and the North won, Congress passed the 13th amendment to free the slaves. It outlawed owning another person, yada, yada, yada, but it was a waste of time. All of it. Every bit. Completely pointless. All those people died and it didn't change anything, because it doesn't work if they don't enforce it. They just ignore it, turn their backs and say it's not their problem, but it is. It's everyone's problem. They can say slavery ended all they want, but that doesn't make it true. People lie. They'll tell you what they think you wanna hear, and you'll believe it. Whatever makes you feel better about your dismal little lives. So, whatever. Go on being naive. Believe what the history book tells you if you want. Believe what Mrs. Anderson wants me to tell you about it. Believe the land of the free, blah, blah, blah, star spangled banner bullshit. Believe there aren't any slaves anymore just because a tall guy in a big ass top hat and a bunch of politicians said so. But I won't believe it, because if I do too, we'll all fucking be wrong, and someone has to be right." -Carmine DeMarco ~ J.M. Darhower

In his great book How to Do Things with Words (1962), J.L. Austin considers the apparently simple sentence "France is hexagonal." He asks if this is true or false, a question that makes perfect sense if the job of a sentence is to be faithful to the world. His answer is that it depends. If you are a general contemplating a coming battle, saying that France is hexagonal might help you assess various military options of defense and attack; it would be a good sentence. But if you are a geographer charged with the task of mapping France's contours, saying that France is hexagonal might cost you your union card; a greater degree of detail and fineness of scale is required of mapmakers. "France is hexagonal," Austin explains, is true "for certain intents and purposes" and false or inadequate or even nonsensical for others. It is, he says, a matter of the "dimension of assessment" -- that is, a matter of what is the "right or proper thing to say as opposed to a wrong thing in these circumstances, to this audience, for these purposes and with these intentions. ~ Stanley Fish

In the simple moral maxim the Marine Corps teaches
- do the right thing, for the right reason
- no exception exists that says: unless there's criticism or risk. Damn the consequences. ~ Josh Rushing

The view was breathtaking. Her gaze swept out across the splendid, exciting square. Yes, she could see the horizon, the view so much more sweeping than she had expected. She saw now what Jim had seen, what had been there all the time. So much to do and know, and yes, she could do this.
And then she saw something else. A familiar figure, cap pushed back, walking toward her. She saw him moving closer, saw those clear, blue eyes. She heard a laugh-- whose? Her own. And it was all right. She could be right or wrong, but her vow to herself was clear now. She would be strong and not always too careful, not settle for a smaller life, and face what was true.
What was true? Perhaps it was here, staring her in the face.
"May I help you down?" Jim said. He was standing beneath her now, his hands on the bridle, looking up, his eyes alight.
Palms up, arms stretched out, she reached toward him.
"Yes," she said. ~ Kate Alcott

The thought I may never see her again streaks through me. The time's all wrong. We only have twenty minutes before we head out. But right now, I don't give a damn. I grab her and push her against the door. No time to do anything except in the most primal of ways. I kiss her hard... ~ Magda Alexander

I can explain myself: If you want to be safe, walk in the middle of the street. I'm not joking. You've been told to look both ways before crossing the street, and the sidewalk is your friend, right? Wrong. I've spent years walking sidewalks at night. I've looked around me when it was dark, when there were men following me, creeping out of alleyways, attempting to goad me into speaking to them and shouting obscenities at me when I wouldn't, and I suddenly realised that the only place left to go was the middle of street. But why would I risk it? Because the odds are in my favour. In the States, someone is killed in a car accident on average every 12.5 minutes, while someone is raped on average every 2.5 minutes. Even when factoring in that, one, I am generously including ALL car-related accidents and not just those involving accidents, and two, that the vast majorities of rapes still go unreported […] And, thus, this is now the way I live my life: out in the open, in the middle of everything, because the middle of the street is actually the safest place to walk. ~ Emilie Autumn

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct. ~ Carl Sandburg

I can't quite shake this feeling that we live in a world gone wrong, that there are all these feelings you're not supposed to have because there's no reason to anymore. But still they're there, stuck somewhere, a flaw that evolution hasn't managed to eliminate yet. I want so badly to feel bad about getting pregnant. But I can't, don't dare to. Just like I didn't dare tell Jack that I was falling in love with him, wanting to be a modern woman who's supposed to be able to handle the casual nature of these kinds of relationships. I'm never supposed to say, to Jack or anyone else, 'What makes you think I'm so rich that you can steal my heart and it won't mean a thing?' Sometimes I think that I was forced to withdraw into depression, because it was the only rightful protest I could throw in the face of a world that said it was all right for people to come and go as they please, that there were simply no real obligations left. Deceit and treachery in both romantic and political relationships is nothing new, but at one time, it was bad, callous, and cold to hurt somebody. Now it's just the way things go, part of the growth process. Really nothing is surprising. After a while, meaning and implication detach themselves from everything. If one can be a father and assume no obligations, it follows that one can be a boyfriend and do nothing at all. Pretty soon you can add friend, acquaintance, co-worker, and just about anyone else to the long list of people who seem to be part of your li ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

There's so many variables in comedy. Comedy is not this thing that's a performance like a play. It's really an interaction with every single person in the room. And if there's a weirdness in the room for any people, be it something the comedians did at the top of the set or be it the mixture of the people isn't right, something can go awry. So it's really great to see you proven wrong about someone. ~ B. J. Porter

Today's political leaders demonstrate their low opinion of the public with every social law they pass. They believe that, if given the right to chose, the citizenry will probably make the wrong choice. Legislators do not think any more in terms of persuading people; they feel the need to force their agenda on the public at the point of a bayonet and the barrel of a gun, in the name of the IRS, the SEC, the FDA, the DEA, the EPA, or a multitude of other ABCs of government authority. ~ Mark Skousen

If everything that is happening in the world is traceable to our inability to understand what is happening in the world. If there is such a thing as original sin, it's the human capacity to get everything wrong, right from the beginning and all the way up to now, and that's what the old storytellers have been telling us, including the Creek Indians who told this story along with every other tribe on earth. ~ Gerald Hausman

She dumped me for the worst reason of all. For absolutely no reason at all ... I mean, if she fell in love with someone else, or I did something wrong, or I let her down in some unforgivable way ... That, I'd understand, right? But instead, she said ... it wasn't anything. Not a single thing. It was just me. I was nice. I was kind. We just ... she didn't see the connection anymore. I think she thought I was boring. And the cruelest part is, when someone says something mean about you, you know when they're right. ~ Brad Meltzer

You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all ... fit. Be right."
"All my life, more of less"
"All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned ... just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I believe in instinct, not reason. When reason is right, nine times out of ten it is impotent, and when it prevails, nine times out of ten it is wrong. ~ A. C. Benson

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now. ~ Daniel Quinn

Did I say 'aspect ratio'? Yes I did. And if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, there's a very good chance your television at home is set to the wrong aspect ratio, in which case I'd like you to stop reading right now and punch yourself hard in the kidneys. ~ Charlie Brooker

A PhD in Mathematics is three years of guessing it wrong, plus one week of getting it right and writing a dissertation. ~ Keith Devlin

YOU ARE A FLOWER Every child is born in the garden of humanity as a flower. Each flower differs from every other flower. There are many messages in our society that tell us, even when we're young people, that there's something wrong with us and that if we just buy the right product, or look a certain way, or have the right partner, that will fix it. As grown-ups, we can remind young people that they're already beautiful as they are; they don't have to be someone else. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I am a citizen of the world, and I have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue, that I am puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and which is the wrong. ~ Wilkie Collins

All this time.
This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I'd always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

There's one." Roy reached over and pounded Bert in the leg. "Slug bug black, no hit backs." "Where?" "Right there." "That's a BMW." Bert smacked Roy twice. "Wrong car, double hit backs." "Can you guys quit this, please?" Tom looked ahead in the distance. "Oh God, no." "Here it is." The cabbie pointed to his right. "Largest Volkswagen dealership in Los Angeles." It was ugly. Real ugly. When ~ J.A. Konrath

On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit ... Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong. ~ Louis Kronenberger

You were right to end it with us," I said harshly. "And I'm not willing to do it again."

He stared at me, shocked. My words were a lie, of course. Part of me wanted to try again, to endure anything to be with him. But I couldn't stop thinking about Maddie. Couldn't stop thinking about the hurt she would go through. It was ironic, really. Last time, he'd gone out of his way to hurt me purposely because it was for the greater good. Now I was doing the same for both of them, saving her from heartache and him from more grief with me. We were in an endless cycle.

"You can't mean that. I know you can't." His face was a mixture of incredulity and pain.

I shook my head. "I do. You and me are a disaster. What we did during this stasis...it was wrong. It was disgraceful. Immoral. We betrayed someone who loves both of us, who wishes nothing but the best for us. How could we do that? What kind of precedent is that? How could we expect to have a solid relationship that was built on that sort of sordid foundation? One that was built on lies and deceit?" Saying those words hurt. It was tarnishing the beauty of these precious few days we had, but I needed to make my case.

Seth was silent for several moments as he assessed me. "You're serious."

"Yes." I was a good liar, good enough that the person who loved me most couldn't tell. "Go back to her, Seth. Go back to her and make it up to her."

"Georgina..." I could see it, see it ~ Richelle Mead

If something is wrong, it'll prove to be wrong in the wash, and if it's right, you don't want to not expose yourself to it - so I read everything, no matter how horrible it gets. You listen and take it in and if it doesn't sway you, you'll know you considered it. ~ Roberto Orci

Why, the wrong is but a wrong i'th'world; and having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it a right. ~ William Shakespeare

Every mind has its particular standard of good and bad, and of right and wrong. This standard is made by what one has experienced through life, by what one has seen or heard; it also depends upon one's belief in a certain religion, one's birth in a certain nation and origin in a certain race. But what can really be called good or bad, right or wrong, is what comforts the mind and what causes it discomfort. It is not true, although it appears so, that it is discomfort that causes wrongdoing. In reality, it is wrongdoing which causes discomfort, and it is right-doing which gives comfort. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan