Dennis Prager Quotes

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Even Charles Darwin, that human decoder ring of bizarre behavior, found the idea of saving a stranger's life to be a total head-scratcher.

I feel really ambiguous about the psychology of people trying to do good in the world.

I always say, 'People first, then money, then things.'

Well I just figure any man who risks his neck to save a dog's life isn't going to kill someone for gold teeth.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

We don't woo our wives with clubs. We don't leave old folks on ice floes. And maybe the time has come to quit diving into rip tides to save people we don't know. We've outgrown a lot of survival-of-the-fittest strategies, and risking our lives for strangers might be one of them.

It takes lives to save lives.

People are nicer than economists give us credit for. The economists cannot understand why people would work long and hard to clean up a community after a hurricane. … Most economists don’t have any interest in or understanding of psychology.

You don't do charity work for publicity. Well, I know I don't. Everybody's different.

Everybody has a hero and a villain within themselves. So it depends upon you to be a hero or a villain. If you show humanity, it will give you satisfaction.

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity.

A moral choice in its basic terms appears to be a choice that favors survival: a choice made in favor of life.

If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die.

I have this theory that there are two kinds of people in the world, people who stop at a traffic accident and those that just drive by. If I see a traffic accident, I am going to stop. I do notice. I don't think that makes me a good or bad person, or anybody else better or worse.

The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.

Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself.

A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he gives so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him.

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.

I truly believe that compassion provides the basis of human survival.

The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle.

Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.

What should happen is a little voice in your head, like Jimmy Cricket in Pinocchio, will go 'But Russell, that bird, that's a creature like you, if you kill it it'll be all sad' and you go 'F***, alright. I won't kill it then.'