It is difficult to offend a New Yorker.

It is difficult to offend a New Yorker.

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens,
and found them both sublime. On the read more

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens,
and found them both sublime. On the naturalistic hypothesis we
should rather compare it to the protective blotches on a beetle's
back, and find them both ingenious.

Dr. Johnson's morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.

Dr. Johnson's morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.

The attainment of an ideal is often the beginning of a disillusion.

The attainment of an ideal is often the beginning of a disillusion.

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that read more

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good ;consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

What I have absolutely no sympathy with is the legislator, the man who seeks, for his own profit, to exploit read more

What I have absolutely no sympathy with is the legislator, the man who seeks, for his own profit, to exploit the weaknesses of those who are unable to help themselves and then to fasten some moral superscription upon it. This I loathe so much that I cannot conceivably explain how much it is.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning,--an
endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea read more

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning,--an
endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the
distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly
bodies.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.

There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls and
vipers, and that is knaves with moral justification for their read more

There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls and
vipers, and that is knaves with moral justification for their
cause.