The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that immorality arises when individuals prioritize their own needs and desires above moral standards.
Jane Addams highlights a critical aspect of immorality: the hypocrisy often displayed by individuals who believe that the rules that apply to everyone else do not apply to them. This mindset creates a double standard where personal interests override ethical considerations, leading to selfishness and a breakdown of social morals.
In practice
In a discussion on ethical leadership, one might quote Addams to emphasize the importance of accountability.
I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know what good music was; I might enjoy half an hour's practice a day if I were busy and happy the rest of the time. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed! I am simply smothered and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the first thing in the morning.
America's future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.
Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.
I am not one of those who believe - broadly speaking - that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.
Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.
National events determine our ideals, as much as our ideals determine national events.
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?
You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people's Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive U.S. surveillance capabilities had become. I realized the true breadth of this system. And almost nobody knew it was happening.
Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench.
We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means.
It was certainly not this mummified and outrageously painted old woman he was seeing before him, but the entire "female species," as it was his custom to call women. The individual disappeared, the features were obliterated, whether young or senile, beautiful or ugly - those were mere unimportant variations. Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.