Desire for something may be intense. It may be so strong as to override estimation of the consequences that will follow acting upon it.
— John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938

 

... we fix on actions in view of an end: the difficulty is to allow for any real moral obligation....

.    .    .    .

Aristotle thus insists that a completely right action must be not only "externally” the right thing to do in the circumstance [considering all factors, inputs, consequences, potential criticisms and so on], but also done from a right motive, proceeding from a moral agent acting precisely as a moral agent.
— Frederick Charles Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Greece & Rome, Vol. I, 1965

 

It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.
— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, V

 

The proud are without pity, because they despise others, and think them wicked, so that they account them as suffering deservedly whatever they suffer.
— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II

 

Apathy adores simplicity; compassion confronts complexity. Where people don’t care, others may suffer. — Turkey says to Chicken at ‘Animals are right!’ say Turkey and Chicken, by Michael Gaspard, 2003

 

Competence: A fool fumbling through the dark falls in the mud!
Advance Preparation: Either light the path ahead or stumble in the dark!
Mental Work: Compassion to Action! Mindless: Motionless!
— Michael Gaspard, January, 2004

 

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason.
— James Boswell; Life of Johnson; July 20, 1763

 

It’s essential that we understand that a better future for our children lies not in looking backward to the traditions and beliefs of our forefathers, but in simply guiding our children to act decently toward one another.
— David L Weiner, Brain Tricks: How to Cope with the Dark Side of Your Brain ... and Win the Ultimate Mind Game, 1993

 

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History warns us ... that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.
— Thomas Henry Huxley, The Coming of Age of "The Origin of Species"

 

Two things [automatically] instruct man about his whole nature: instinct and experience.
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées, VI

 

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown. — Stephen J. Gould, An urchin in the storm: Essays about books and ideas, 1987

 

Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine.
— Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism, 1711

 

 

 

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