MORALISTS

Quote for the Day -- September 16, 2010


"Moralists
are unhappy people.
When they insist
on the immutability
of moral principles,
they are reproached
for imposing unlivable
requirements on us.

When they explain
the way
those immutable principles
are to be put into force,
taking into account
the diversity of concrete situations,
they are reproached
for making morality relative.

In both cases,
however,
they are only upholdinig
the claims of reason
to direct life."


Jacques Maritain [1882-1973], Man and the State - 1949, but published in 1951