A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting
by Charles Darwin

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting
on his past actions and their motives -
of approving of some and disapproving of others.
- Charles Darwin

Related topics: Values Wisdom

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe,
nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws,
but the smallest insect, we wish
to be created at once by special act.
- Charles Darwin

If the misery of the poor be caused
not by the laws of nature,
but by our institutions,
great is our sin.
- Charles Darwin

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

Please sign-up for my Free Daily Inspirational Quotes and Insights Email on the form below.

Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The highest possible stage in moral culture
is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
- Charles Darwin

The mystery of the beginning
of all things is insoluble by us;
and I for one, must be content to remain an agnostic.
- Charles Darwin

To kill an error is as good a service as,
and sometimes even better than,
the establishing of a new truth or fact.
- Charles Darwin

A man who dares to waste one hour of time
has not discovered the value of life.
- Charles Darwin

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
- Charles Darwin

The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin

How paramount the future is to the present
when one is surrounded by children.
- Charles Darwin

In the long history of humankind (and animal-kind, too)
those who learned to collaborate and
improvise most effectively have prevailed.
- Charles Darwin

Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped,
probably arboreal in its habits.
- Charles Darwin

I have called this principle,
by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term of Natural Selection.
- Charles Darwin

What a book a devil's chaplain might write
on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low,
and horribly cruel work of nature!
- Charles Darwin

On the ordinary view of each species
having been independently created,
we gain no scientific explanation.
- Charles Darwin

It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.
- Charles Darwin

Animals, whom we have made our slaves,
we do not like to consider our equal.
- Charles Darwin

In the struggle for survival,
the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals
because they succeed in adapting
themselves best to their environment.
- Charles Darwin

It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed
in any subject as I am in mine.
- Charles Darwin

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -
a mere heart of stone.
- Charles Darwin

I love fools' experiments.
I am always making them.
- Charles Darwin

I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts
and grinding out conclusions.
- Charles Darwin

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science,
for they often endure long; but false views,
if supported by some evidence, do little harm,
for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
- Charles Darwin

Man tends to increase at a greater rate
than his means of subsistence.
- Charles Darwin

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare,
and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
- Charles Darwin

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.
- Charles Darwin

The universe we observe has precisely
the properties we should expect
if there is, at bottom, no design,
no purpose, no evil, no good,
nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
- Charles Darwin

I cannot persuade myself that a
beneficent and omnipotent God
would have designedly created parasitic wasps
with the express intention of their feeding
within the living bodies of caterpillars.
- Charles Darwin

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge:
it is those who know little, and not those who know much,
who so positively assert that this or that problem
will never be solved by science.
- Charles Darwin

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do not be too moral.
You may cheat yourself out of much life.
So aim above morality.
Be not simply good;
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
- Lewis Carroll

A true "moral compass" never points toward discrimination.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The perception of beauty is a moral test.
- Henry David Thoreau

About morals: I know only that
what is moral is what you feel good after
and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
- Ernest Hemingway

Increase of material comforts,
it may be generally laid down,
does not in any way whatsoever
conduce to moral growth.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

I am not interested in power for power's sake,
but I'm interested in power that is moral,
that is right and that is good.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A person acting from a motivation
of contribution and service
rises to such a level of moral authority
that worldly success is a natural result.
- Marianne Williamson

Compassion is the universal standard of moral living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The acceptance of oneself is
the essence of the whole moral problem
and the epitome of a whole outlook on life.
- Carl Jung

If we are to go forward, we must go back
and rediscover those precious values -
that all reality hinges on moral foundations
and that all reality has spiritual control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Moral authority is never retained by
any attempt to hold on to it.
It comes without seeking and
is retained without effort.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The moral arc of the universe
bends at the elbow of justice.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is curious - curious that physical courage
should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare
- Mark Twain

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

I am an Epicurean.
I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus
as containing everything rational in moral philosophy
which Greek and Roman leave to us.
- Thomas Jefferson

The interests of a nation, when well understood,
will be found to coincide with their moral duties.
- Thomas Jefferson

I look forward to a great future for America -
a future in which our country will match its military strength
with our moral restraint,
its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
- John F. Kennedy

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside,
is that they cannot win and their participants know it.
Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary
because it invites defeat.
It involves an emotional catharsis,
but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is
whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
- Joseph Campbell

The life of inner peace,
being harmonious and without stress,
is the easiest type of existence.
- Norman Vincent Peale

We all live with the objective of being happy;
our lives are all different and yet the same.
- Anne Frank

Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard

There is sanctuary in being alone with nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha

You are never given a wish without also
being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however.
- Richard Bach

Courage is the art of being the only one
who knows you're scared to death.
- Earl Wilson

An idea that is not dangerous is
unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Oscar Wilde

Service is the rent we pay for being.
It is the very purpose of life,
and not something you do in your spare time.
- Marion Wright Edelman

If being good isn't working - try being outrageous.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

To love someone deeply gives you strength.
Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao Tzu

Loving, hating, having expectations:
all these are attachments.
Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being.
- Lao Tzu

I am an optimist.
It does not seem too much use being anything else.
- Winston Churchill

The truth is a snare:
you cannot have it, without being caught.
You cannot have the truth
in such a way that you catch it,
but only in such a way that it catches you.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Being defeated is often a temporary condition.
Giving up is what makes it permanent.
- Marilyn vos Savant

Life is NOT "Supposed to be Fair."
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be.
Demanding that life meet our expectations
is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence.
Life is a game with no rules.
Life just happens to us regardless of our best intentions.
Our only path to happiness lies in being open
to receiving whatever life throws at us -
with Gratitude. Have NO Expectations of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength;
loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao Tzu

What I recognized is that you can't put it together.
It's already together, and what you have to do
is experience it being together.
- Werner Erhard

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing
a human being to a purpose.
- Albert Schweitzer

Please sign up on the form below to receive my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie