Moral Nihilism Quotes & Sayings

No matter what sign you were born under, everybody else's horoscope will be more fun than yours. — Teresa Bloomingdale

Socrates: "Know thyself." For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints. — Peter Kreeft

Religion should lay more emphasis on our relationship with people — Sunday Adelaja

The studies of women's lives over time portray the role of crisis in transition and underline the possibilities for growth and despair that lie in the recognition of defeat. The studies of Betty and Sarah elucidate the transitions in the development of an ethic of care. The shifts in concern from survival to goodness and from goodness to truth are elaborated through time in these two women's lives. Both studies illustrate the potential of crisis to break a cycle of repetition and suggest that crisis itself may signal a return to a missed opportunity for growth. These portraits of transition are followed by depictions of despair, illustrations of moral nihilism in women who could find no answer to the question "why care? — Carol Gilligan

We must overthrow the material and moral conditions of our present-day life ... We must first purify our atmosphere and completely transform the milieu in which we live; for it corrupts our instinct and our will, and constricts our heart and our intelligence — Mikhail Bakunin

A widespread secularization increasingly descends into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself. — Charles Colson

Stand out because you think differently.
Stand out because you speak differently.
Stand out because you act differently.
Stand out because you work differently.
Stand out because you live differently. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Existing political philosophies all developed before evolutionary game theory, so they do not take equilibrium selection into account. Socialism pretends that individuals are not selfish sexual competitors, so it ignores equilibria altogether. Conservatism pretends that there is only one possible equilibrium - a nostalgic version of the status quo - that society could play. Libertarianism ignores the possibility of equilibrium selection at the level of rational social discourse, and assumes that decentralized market dynamics will magically lead to equilibria that yield the highest aggregate social benefits. Far from being a scientific front for a particular set of political views, modern evolutionary psychology makes most standard views look simplistic and unimaginitive. — Geoffrey Miller

The Nazis, for him, are merely available movie tropes
articulate monsters with a talent for sadism. By making the Americans cruel, too, he escapes the customary division of good and evil along national lines, but he escapes any sense of moral accountability as well. In a Tarantino war, everyone commits atrocities. Like all the director's work after 'Jackie Brown,' the movie is pure sensation. It's disconnected from feeling, and an eerie blankness
it's too shallow to be called nihilism
undermines even the best scenes. — David Denby

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for. — Christopher Hitchens

[R]eligious concepts are parasitic upon moral intuitions. — Pascal Boyer

Everything's a bad metaphor for sex. — Quentin R. Bufogle

If a problem is irreversible, is there still an ethical obligation to try to reverse it? — Chuck Klosterman

Half the people in the world are below average. That's the definition of average and explains the behaviour of a lot of people. — Robert Popple

The most important part of discernment is pinpointing the forces to be reckoned with, both the constructive and destructive. — Criss Jami

I realized that all you have to do is state what you need and figure out how to get it, and be kind and help other people move forward. Check your jealousy, which is always present, and the threat of the younger generation coming forward as they must do. — Jeanine Tesori

To say that life is meaningless is to express an attitude, not to state a fact — Peter Singer

The combination of parental abdication and social liberalism in our schools means that kids are easy targets for nihilism and moral subjectivism. — Ben Shapiro

I kind of like being single. You're not responsible to tell anyone where you are or who you're with. It's freedom and loneliness, exhilaration and inner calm. You don't have to shave. — Tarryn Fisher

Industrial agriculture freed many people to pursue lives their parents and grandparents could never have. It made America modern. — Michael Specter

The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal. — Chris Hedges

Nihilism is the moral equivalent of weightlessness. — Myself

Certainty is not to be had. But as we learn this we become not more moral but more resigned. We become nihilists. — Allen Wheelis

He is not a tame lion," said Tirian. "How should we know what he would do? We, who are murderers. Jewel, I will go back. I will give up my sword and put myself in the hands of these Calormenes and ask that they bring me before Aslan. Let him do justice on me."
"You will go to your death, then," said Jewel.
"Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?" said the King. "That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun."
"I know," said Jewel. "Or as if you drank water and it were dry water. You are in the right, Sire. This is the end of all things. Let us go and give ourselves up."
"There is no need for both of us to go."
"If ever we loved one another, let me go with you now," said the Unicorn. "If you are dead and if Aslan is not Aslan, what life is left for me? — C.S. Lewis

Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism. — Martin Luther King Jr.