Leon Kass

“Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.”

“The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and ennobling.”

“In an age of unprecedented power, we are morally confused and spiritually adrift.”

“Human cloning would be a new and more pernicious form of the tyranny of one generation over the next.”

“We are already voyaging on the sea of biotechnology, and we are bad sailors. We are adrift without a chart, and we are quarreling among ourselves about where we should go.”

“The first gift of a good education is the love of learning.”

“To beget a child is to say to the world and to the future, 'I have something to give.'”

“The desire for procreation is, at its core, a desire for a share in eternity.”

“Awe is the beginning of wisdom, not just in philosophy, but in all of human life.”

“There is a wisdom in repugnance; we should trust the yuck factor.”

“The deepest and most abiding purpose of the medical art is to preserve the wholeness of the human being.”

“In the face of possible off-putting consequences, we have an obligation to proceed with caution.”

“For it is only by knowing what is good for us that we can truly be said to know ourselves.”

“We need to be reminded of the difference between making a life and making a living.”

“The human body, in its beauty and complexity, is a source of wonder and a guide to understanding our nature.”