Harry G. FrankfurtMorality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.
About This Quote
There are some things that don't matter in life, morals are not one of them. Morals are not just abstract ideals that we have to live by, but rather they are self-imposed rules that have been placed on others to force them to live a certain way. However, if we're not careful, the way we live our life is going to affect others and they will have to live by those same rules too. In other words, if you do something wrong, it's going to affect others and so they have no choice but to live their lives by those same rules too.
This is a strong argument for change and doing the right thing. For example, you might think that stealing is bad because it's wrong and you don't want to hurt anyone by doing it. It might be true that stealing is wrong, but if everybody followed the same rules as you then nobody would be able to do what they wanted.
In fact, morality can provide only a severely limited and insufficient answer as far as how people should live.
Source: The Reasons Of Love
Some Similar Quotes
- I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
- You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.
- You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
- A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
- Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
More Quotes By Harry G. Frankfurt
- The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "anti-realist" doctrines undermine confidence in...
- Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial–notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.
- Morality can provide at most only a severely limited and insufficient answer to the question of how a person should live.
- Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that...
- The notion of carefully wrought bullshit involves, then, a certain innerstrain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards and limitations that forbid the indulgence of impulse or whim. It is this selflessness that, in connection with bullshit, strikes us as...