What Smith and Marx have in common is that they were both philosophers of great vision and perceptiveness, deep humanity, and a sense of social reality that has been lost in the abstractly formalistic economic theories that have dominated the field since the last third of the nineteenth century.

Kant's description of most ethical duties reads more like a description of moral virtues and vices. Once we see this, we see that Kantian ethics is indeed a kind of virtue ethics, and that it does not "divide the heart from the head" (to anticipate one of your later questions) but instead recognizes the deep truth that reason and emotion are not opposites.

People are often most proud of precisely those things of which they should most be ashamed.

It is often difficult to know about one's own era which philosophers in it will be remembered as the most important ones, but I think it is already clear that John Rawls is the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century.

Reason necessarily expresses itself through emotions and emotions are healthy only insofar as they are expressions of reason.

Many who are committed to reason and science have turned against religion altogether and treat it with fear and contempt.

Freedom is an unprovable but unavoidable presupposition, not an article of faith.