A Quote by Robert Green Ingersoll

It cannot be said too often that actions are good or bad in the light of consequences, and that a clear perception of consequences would control actions. That which increases the sum of human happiness is moral; and that which diminishes the sum of human happiness is immoral. . . . Blind, unreasoning obedience is the enemy of morality.

Robert Green Ingersoll

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Actions Bad Blind Cannot Clear Consequences Control Enemy Good Happiness Human Human Happiness Immoral Increases Light Moral Morality Obedience Often Perception Said Sum Too Which Would

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Robert Green Ingersoll
American - Lawyer
August 11, 1833 - July 21, 1899

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

Nhat Hanh

For the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good the utilitarian adopts) and about which actions or moral rules would contribute to maximizing the good. For the rational intuitionist, there are truths about which actions should be done and not done.

Allen W. Wood

Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.

Joan D. Chittister

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness.

Clara Barton

It is the responsibility of every human to know their actions and the consequences of their actions and to ask questions and to question things when they are wrong.

Michael Moore

The flow of action continually produces consequences which are unintended by actors, and these unintended consequences also may form unacknowledged conditions of actions in a feedback fashion. Human history is created by intentional activities but is not an intended project; it persistently eludes efforts to bring it under conscious direction.

Anthony Giddens

I'm trying to understand how do we tell lies to ourselves to justify what we've done and what are the consequences of those lies? But actually maybe I also recognize that in turning empathy into a practice for many years, by turning, by forcing myself to separate at some level the humanity of a human being from his or her actions and recognizing that sometimes, even the moral aspects of a human being can contribute to immoral behavior.

Joshua Oppenheimer

Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

Stephen Dobyns

[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.

Bertrand Russell

In order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment.

Michael Crichton

We now know that we cannot continue to put ever-increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Actions have consequences. In fact, the consequences of past actions are already in the pipeline. Global temperatures are rising. Glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events are multiplying.

Cary Fowler

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

Zadie Smith

And here one must not that hatred is acquired just as much by means of good actions as by bad ones; and so, as I said above, if a prince wishes to maintain the state, he is often obliged not to be good; because whenever that group which you believe you need to support you is corrupted, whether it be the common people, the soldiers, or the nobles, it is to your advantage to follow their inclinations in order to satisfy them; and then good actions are your enemy.

Niccolo Machiavelli

A passion for continual learning, a refined, discerning ear for the moral and ethical consequences of their actions, and an understanding of the purposes of work and human organisations

Warren G. Bennis

I'm gut all the way, which is why I think I'm so connected to shows like Falling Water and even The Walking Dead, which is all about the mortal consequences of our actions. Generally, we act first and realize the consequences later.

Gale Anne Hurd

A Quote by Robert Green Ingersoll

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