Famous quotes containing the words moral, philosophers, historical, ethical and/or theories:
“It is easy and dismally enervating to think of opposition as merely perverse or actually evil—far more invigorating to see it as essential for honing the mind, and as a positive good in itself. For the day that moral issues cease to be fought over is the day the word “human” disappears from the race.”
—Jill Tweedie (b. 1936)
“She’s in the house.
She’s at turn after turn.
She’s behind me.
She’s in front of me.
She’s in my bed.
She’s on path after path,
and I’m weak from want of her.
O heart,
there is no reality for me
other than she she
she she she she
in the whole of the reeling world.
And philosophers talk about Oneness.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“Some minds are as little logical or argumentative as nature; they can offer no reason or “guess,” but they exhibit the solemn and incontrovertible fact. If a historical question arises, they cause the tombs to be opened. Their silent and practical logic convinces the reason and the understanding at the same time. Of such sort is always the only pertinent question and the only satisfactory reply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)