[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
While any one is base, none can be entirely free and noble.
To say then, the majority are wicked, means no malice, no bad heart in the observer, but, simply that the majority are unripe, andhave not yet come to themselves, do not yet know their opinion.
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody is commanded to obey. That is all it is.
Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.
Society rests upon conscience, not upon science.
We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do.
Morality is not defined and cannot be defined by individual choice.
Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.
Feelings of right and wrong that at first have their locus within the family gradually develop into a pattern for the tribe or city, then spread to the much larger unit of the nation, and finally from the nation to mankind as a whole.
When people say "the people" or "the public" as though it's the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
The unit of effectiveness of education is not the individual but the group. An individual's moral values are primarily important for society as they contribute to a moral social climate, not as they induce particular pieces of behavior.
This is not about what party you're part of. This is about right and wrong, ... the conscience of this nation.
In the past goodness was always a collective experience. Then goodness became privatised.
National character cannot be built by law. It is the sum of the moral fiber of its individuals.
The national government...will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.
Society itself is an accident to the spirit, and if society in any of its forms is to be justified morally it must be justified at the bar of the individual conscience.
Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?
No government can act in advance of the moral will of the people.
The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.
