Melford Spiro quotes

Melford Spiro quotes

last updated: November 28, 2023

“Viewed systematically, religion can be differentiated from other culturally constituted institutions by virtue only of its reference to superhuman beings.”
-- Melford Spiro

#Religion Quotes #Virtue Quotes #Institutions Quotes

“Let us be done with the notion that religion is confined to petty pieties and small constraints. All too often people who have possessed these pieties have wrought great evil.”
“The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society.”
“Determination is the fuel that propels one to higher virtues.”
“Valor would cease to be a virtue, if there were no injustice.”
“The loftiest in status are those who do not know their own status, and the most virtuous of them are those who do not know their own virtue.”
“Justice is the most "political" or institutional of the virtues. The legitimacy of a state rests upon its claim to do justice.”

Source : "Justice". Introduction to the book edited by Alan Ryan, 1993.
“Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues.”

Source : Alasdair MacIntyre (2013). “After Virtue”, p.175, A&C Black
“Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs .”
“The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.”
“The Postal Service is a vitally important institution for the American people. It must be saved.”

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