Quote

we have made an extraordinary transition. From moral absolutes to moral relativism. ... Moral problems become medical ones and yesterday's sinners become today's patients.

Ellen Goodman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Become
Medical
Problem
Yesterday
Today
Patient
Relativism
Made
Morality
Sinners
Extraordinary
Patients
Ones
Sinner
Problems
Transition
Moral
Absolutes

More quotes by Ellen Goodman

Image
I wonder whether our adoption of Shrink-ese as a second language, the move from religious phrases of judgment to secular words of acceptance, hasn't also produced a moral lobotomy. In the reluctance, the aversion to being judgmental, are we disabled from making any judgments at all?
Ellen Goodman
Image
In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.
Ellen Goodman
Image
Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue.
Ellen Goodman
Image
I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.
Ellen Goodman
Image
My father used to say that if a man fools you once, he's a jerk. If he fools you twice, you're a jerk. Only he didn't use the word jerk.
Ellen Goodman
Image
We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?
Ellen Goodman
Image
I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.
Ellen Goodman
Image
You can teach someone who cares to write columns, but you can’t teach someone who writes columns to care.
Ellen Goodman
Image
It has begun to occur to me that life is a stage I'm going through.
Ellen Goodman
Image
My generation is the first in my species to have put fitness next to godliness on the scale of things. Keeping in shape has become the imperative of our middle age. The heaviest burden of guilt we carry into our forties is flab. Our sense of failure is measured by the grade on a stress test.
Ellen Goodman
Image
Without even knowing it, we are assaulted by a high note of urgency all the time. We end up pacing ourselves to the city rhythm whether or not it's our own. In time we even grow hard of hearing to the rest of the world. Like a violinist stuck next to the timpani, we may lose the ability to hear our own instrument.
Ellen Goodman
Image
The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.
Ellen Goodman
Image
[E]very time you think the entertainment moguls have hit rock bottom, they reach for the jackhammer and rat-a-tat-tat a little deeper.
Ellen Goodman
Image
Taboos are falling across our culture like dominoes. What was unspeakable yesterday dominates talk shows today.
Ellen Goodman
Image
We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
Ellen Goodman
Image
Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor.
Ellen Goodman
Image
We each have a litany of holiday rituals and everyday habits that we hold on to, and we often greet radical innovation with the enthusiasm of a baby meeting a new sitter. We defend against it and - not always, but often enough - reject it. Slowly we adjust, but only if we have to.
Ellen Goodman
Image
People have been writing premature obituaries on the women's movement since its beginning.
Ellen Goodman
Image
instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions.
Ellen Goodman
Image
Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.
Ellen Goodman