A Quote by Michael Sandel

A better way to mutual respect is to engage directly with the moral convictions citizens bring to public life, rather than to require that people leave their deepest moral convictions outside politics before they enter.

Michael Sandel

Quote Topics

Before Better Better Way Bring Citizens Convictions Deepest Directly Engage Enter Leave Life Moral Mutual Mutual Respect Outside People Politics Public Public Life Rather Require Respect Than Way

Quote Author

Michael Sandel
American - Philosopher
Born: March 5, 1953

My main quarrel with liberalism is not that liberalism places great emphasis on individual rights - I believe rights are very important and need to be respected. The issue is whether it is possible to define and justify our rights without taking a stand on the moral and even sometimes religious convictions that citizens bring to public life.

Michael Sandel

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

Nancy Pearcey

What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.

Thomas Huxley

In real life, I'm afraid of heights - and people who get moral convictions... Adolf Hitler in London.

Michael Caine

Republicans stand by their convictions. Stupid, ignorant, world-destroying convictions based on disproven economic fantasies and ancient books full of primitive morality and magic people. But convictions, nonetheless.

Bill Maher

When the principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then the battle is your calling, and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.

Abraham Kuyper

Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state - that devouring leviathan - will soon swallow up all traces of human volition and dignity. The conclusion is based on conservative moral convictions that reason can't shake.

Rick Perlstein

The strength of Donald Trump as a candidate - and I'm not in any way defending moral convictions or anything of the sort - was that he says what he means, you know where he stands.

Mark Shields

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

Michael Shermer

The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.

William Empson

Convictions are the mainsprings of action, the driving powers of life. What a man lives are his convictions.

Francis Kelley

There is a tendency to think that if we engage too directly with moral questions in politics, that's a recipe for disagreement, and for that matter, a recipe for intolerance and coercion.

Michael Sandel

Biblical convictions are essential for spiritual growth and maturity. What is ironic today is that people often have strong convictions about weak issues (football, fashion, etc.) while having weak convictions about major issues (what is right and what is wrong).