top of page
.png){kind=small}
Exlpore more Ethics quotes
"But you can't just leave it at that!" said Anathema, pushing forward. "Think of all things you could do! Good things."Like what?" said Adam suspiciously."Well... you could bring all the whales back, to start with."He put his head on one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them?"She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes."An' if people do start killing 'em, what would you ask me to do about 'em?" said Adam. "No. I reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Once I start messing around like that, there'd be no stoppin' it. Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale."
"Religion [dharma] is that where there is no irreligion (adharma, immorality). Religion cannot exist where there is irreligion. There can be only one or the other. Behind every intention, there is either [the force of] religion or [the force of] irreligion."
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
"Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for promises you didn't keep."
"It is better to be slave to righteousness than slave to sin."
"Happiness at any price is no happiness at all."
"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."
"We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and the other which we practice but seldom preach."
Explore more quotes by Steven Pinker
"Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language."
"But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain are genetically organized, and don't depend on information coming in from the senses."
"Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?"
"As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones."
"There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization."
"What is truly arresting about our kind is better captured in the story of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened."
"My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries."
"So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents."
"By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu."
"The doctrine of a soul that outlives the body is anything but righteous, because it necessarily devalues the lives we live on this earth."
bottom of page