One of the chief objects of medicine is to save us from the natural consequences of our vices and follies. The moment it becomes moral it becomes quackery. A scientific physician should have no opinions about the ethical standards and deserts of his patient.
H. L. Mencken, Minority Report: H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956), p. 7.
We can have exactly as many paupers as the country chooses to pay for.
Thomas Mackay, Methods of Social Reform (London: John Murray, 1896), p. 210.
In this age of communication, ignorance is no longer bliss.
Lawrence Fawcett & Barry J. Greenwood, The UFO Cover-Up: What the Government Won’t Say (1984).
The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to elevate this power is the only way to counteract this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of that power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1792).
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.