Frans de Waal Quotes

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

Once you are thought selfish, not only are you forgiven a life designed mainly to suit yourself, which in anyone else would appear monstrous, but if an impulse to generosity should by chance overpower you, you will get five times the credit of some poor selfless soul who has been oozing kindness for years.

We seem okay with violence, but nudity we race to criticize and censor.

I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience.

That which we call sin in others, we call experiment in ourselves.

Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are a millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an illness and needs our prayers for your recovery.

President Trump's critics call him an immoral lout. By strict moral standards, so are we all.

At times, it appears easy to sermonise on morality and ethics. But morality and ethics appear good only when applied to others, never on oneself.

We all give ourselves a lot of leeway, but we want consistency from other people.

Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality.

The dramatic critic who is without prejudice is on the plane with the general who does not believe in taking human life.

Oh, 'tis not my qualities they object to! 'Tis my lack of vice.

Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist.

Sarah Palin is very pro-life of course, unless the life is that of an Iraqi civilian or a wolf running frantically from a roaring helicopter while being strafed with ribbons of automatic weapons fire.

The world is divided into those who screw and those who do not. He distrusted those who did not—when they strayed form the straight and narrow it was something so unusual for them that they bragged about love as if they had just invented it.

Aggression which is flagitious when committed by one, is not sanctioned when committed by a host.

Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.

How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!

I open the door for old ladies, I help old ladies across the road. I do a show for leukemia every year, but I don't broadcast that because it's against my image.

A Tory minister can sleep in ten different women's beds in a week. A Labour minister gets it in the neck if he looks at his neighbour's wife over the garden fence.

We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.

In my own life, I do not live like an effective altruist. An effective altruist would really disapprove of my life. I don't give enough to charity and I still have both my kidneys.

It is wicked to withdraw from being useful to the needy, and cowardly to give way to the worthless.

How often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity that his intentions were good.