Quotes & Sayings About Moral Obligations

Somehow it must be made plain that the lawyer's moral judgment is not for hire, that there are occasions when the lawyer ... is under a duty to act as a person of independent ethical concern with obligations not only to his client's interests but also to fairness and justice in the management of affairs. — Harry Jones

The main bone of contention is whether Islamic injunctions are legal or moral categories. When Muslims say Islam commands daily prayers or bans alcohol, are they talking about public obligations that will be enforced by the state or personal ones that will be judged by God? — Mustafa Akyol

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations. — Agnes Repplier

Your love of liberty
your respect for the laws
your habits of industry
and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness. — George Washington

We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on. — Alexander McCall Smith

A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men? — Abigail Adams

Here's why an allowance is good for kids: Having a little of their own money, and deciding how to save or spend it, offers a measure of autonomy and teaches them to be responsible with cash. Here's why household chores are good for kids: Chores show kids that families are built on mutual obligations and that family members need to help each other. Here's why combining allowances with chores is not good for kids. By linking money to the completion of chores, parents turn an allowance into an "if-then" reward. This sends kids a clear (and clearly wrongheaded) message: In the absence of a payment, no self-respecting child would willingly set the table, empty the garbage, or make her own bed. It converts a moral and familial obligation into just another commercial transaction - and teaches that the only reason to do a less-than-desirable task for your family is in exchange for payment. — Daniel H. Pink

Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all other Circumstances. Think of no other Greatness but that of the soul, no other Riches but those of the Heart. An honest, Sensible humane Man, above all the Littlenesses of Vanity, and Extravagances of Imagination, labouring to do good rather than be rich, to be usefull rather than make a show, living in a modest Simplicity clearly within his Means and free from Debts or Obligations, is really the most respectable Man in Society, makes himself and all about him the most happy. — John Adams

Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly. — Vaclav Havel

He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections. — Samuel Adams

This necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessing of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue. — Thomas Paine

Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men. — Ayn Rand

I wonder whether certain dreadful events, of the sort this picture is full of, are not so incalculably rich in the possibilities of moral and aesthetic blackmail that they can never be represented maturely or even un-deceitfully, and so had better not be represented at all...Indeed, few films ever made have so vigorously seized the spectator by the throat and so implacably insisted, with one unprincipled bang over the head after another, that he turn himself into the wildest animal possible, and mistrust and hate with all his might any lingering question which troubles him about his obligations to do so. — James Agee

Isabel had firm views on moral proximity and the obligations it created. WE cannot choose the situations in which we become involved in this life; we are caught up in them whether we like it or not. If one encounters the need for another, because of who one happens to be, or where one happens to find oneself, and one is in a position to help, then one should do so. It was as simple as that. — Alexander McCall Smith

We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility. — Harrison Ford

We attempted to try to solve every problem in the world, out of a sense of moral obligations, and attitudes, and our history. But no country can solve every problem without exhausting itself. Therefore, we have to establish priorities. — Henry A. Kissinger

But they knew, either instinctively or from their own experience, that our early impulsive emotions have but little influence over our later actions and the conduct of our lives; and that regard for moral obligations, loyalty to our friends, patience in finishing our work, obedience to a rule of life, have a surer foundation in habits solidly formed and blindly followed than in these momentary transports, ardent but sterile. — Marcel Proust

A free and rooted society ought to consist of a web of moral obligations. We have the right to ignore them, but we ought to be actually obliged not to let other people starve or to let them lapse into destitution. — Pankaj Mishra

Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity. — Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

There is a desperate tendency to try to legislate artists, to try to lay down rules for their obligations to society. Just leave artists alone. If you are a true artist, you will have a very finely tuned moral mechanism. — Athol Fugard

The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. — Ron Paul

No doubt we instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us. Few could stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore the avoidable deaths of children in Africa or India. The question, however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations. — Peter Singer

Across practices, across cultures, and throughout historical periods, when people support and engage in violence, their primary motivations are moral. By 'moral', I mean that people are violent because they feel they must be; because they feel that their violence is obligatory. They know that they are harming fully human beings. Nonetheless, they believe they should. Violence does not stem from a psychopathic lack of morality. Quite the reverse: it comes from the exercise of perceived moral rights and obligations. — Anonymous

Corporations aren't citizens or neighbors or parents. They can't vote or serve in combat. They don't learn the Pledge of Allegiance. They don't have souls. They're revenue machines. I don't have any problem with that. I think it's absurd to lay moral or civic obligations on them. Their only obligations are strategic, and while they can get very complex, at root they're not civic entities. With corporations, I have no problem with government enforcement of statutes and regulatory policy serving a conscience function. — David Foster Wallace

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and, in fact, it has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Satan tempted them to regard this restriction as unjust and cruel. He caused them to lust after forbidden things, because he saw that the unrestrained indulgence of appetite would tend to produce sensuality, and by this means the people could be more easily brought under his control. The author of disease and misery will assail men where he can have the greatest success. Through temptations addressed to the appetite he has, to a large extent, led men into sin from the time when he induced Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. It was by this same means that he led Israel to murmur against God. Intemperance in eating and drinking, leading as it does to the indulgence of the lower passions, prepares the way for men to disregard all moral obligations. When assailed by temptation, they have little power of resistance. — Ellen G. White

I believe that a religious conversion is the only way to stimulate the peoples of the industrialized nations to be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of esho funi (the oneness of self and environment) ... I wish the entire world would accept as an item of religious faith the concept of esho funi and its moral obligations. — Arnold J. Toynbee

His mind was of a most phlegmatic sort, cool in its private applications, quick, and excessively rational; he possessed a fault common to those of high intelligence, however, which was that he tended to regard the gift of his intellect as a license of a kind, by whose rarefied authority he was protected, in all circumstances, from ever behaving ill. He considered his moral obligations to be of an altogether different class than those of lesser men, and so rarely felt shame or compunction, except in very general terms. — Eleanor Catton

We must act now and wake up to our moral obligations. The poor and vulnerable are members of God's family and are the most severely affected by droughts, high temperatures, the flooding of coastal cities, and more severe and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change. We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources. — Desmond Tutu

Being vegan is not a matter of "lifestyle." It is a matter of fundamental moral obligation. Is being vegan a matter of "choice"? Only insofar as we are able to choose to ignore our moral obligations not to exploit the vulnerable. — Gary L. Francione

Equality of rights means that some people cannot simply impose obligations on others, for the moral agency and rights of those others would then be violated. — Tom G. Palmer

We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals. — Gary L. Francione

When we mother well, we teach our children to embrace the moral obligations that build solid relationships, healthy marriages, and secure families. — Jani Ortlund