“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.”
William James Is Life Worth Living?
"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
“Morality Critics”
“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.”
William James Is Life Worth Living?
"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)
Sociology and philosophy (1911), D. Pocock, trans. (1974), p. 51.
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) Swiss author
The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)
1910s
Context: The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
“We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme.”
Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman
As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 2
Context: We like to have a point of view in our stories, not an obvious moral, but a worthwhile theme. … All we are trying to do is give the public good entertainment. That is all they want.
Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman
As quoted in The Gospel According to Disney : Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (2004) by Mark I. Pinsky, p. 2
Year unknown, published in 2004
“A moral point of view too often serves as a substitute for understanding in technological matters.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 245
Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist
Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, " The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/bonobo-all-us.html; quotes from this interview were for some time misplaced on this page, which probably generated similar misattributions elsewhere, and the misplacement was not discovered until after this quotation had been selected for Quote of the Day, as a quote of Goodall. Corrections were subsequently made here, during the day the quote was posted as QOTD. <br class="br">The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
Mikhail Khodaryonok (1954) Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces