Ideas don't desert you; ideas aren't treasonous to you, but people can be.
Alan DershowitzRead
In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life often presents us with difficult choices, and we must use our morals to guide these decisions.
Alan Dershowitz highlights the inherent complexity in the decisions we face in life, where often we find ourselves forced to choose between less-than-ideal options. This quote emphasizes the importance of having a robust moral framework to guide us through these challenging situations, reminding us that our ethical beliefs should dictate our choices even when all options seem flawed.
Themes
ChoicesMoralityEthicsDecisionsEvils
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on moral dilemmas, one might use this quote to frame the discussion.
More from Alan Dershowitz
All quotes →Ed Koch will never "rest in peace." That was not his way. He was always nervously squirming, while making others squirm as well. Comfort was not his goal. He understood that to be a proud and assertive Jew meant never being able to leave a sigh of relief and say "it's over, we are at peace, we can now put down our guard and relax."
Alan DershowitzRead
It's never acceptable to target civilians. It violates the Geneva Accords, it violates the international law of war and it violates all principles of morality.
Alan DershowitzRead
When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum, in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today and it's called the Internet.
Alan DershowitzRead
A good lawyer knows how to shut up when he's won his case.
Alan DershowitzRead
Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Alan DershowitzRead
Similar quotes
Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.
J. K. RowlingRead
If I had even a slight awareness, and practiced the Great Way, what I would fear would be deviating from it.
Gautama BuddhaRead
I have spent a lot of my career working on normative political philosophy, developing the 'capabilities approach' to social justice. I have also spent a lot of my career working on the structure of the emotions, and their role in human life.
Martha NussbaumRead
Here in Britain, black people are disproportionately targeted, arrested and imprisoned for drug offences, while organised and violent crime are granted a massive source of revenue.
Owen JonesRead
In the fairy tale, an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
An 'impersonal God'-well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads-better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap-best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, King, husband-that is quite another matter.
C. S. LewisRead