Ethical Values Quotes

You need a certain standard of literacy, moral and ethical values, to be able to run a one man, one vote system. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy. ~ Paul Kurtz

No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery. ~ Bertrand Russell

Perhaps most important, judges will have goals. And because this is so, judges will often try to mold and steer the law in order to promote certain ethical values and achieve certain social ends. Such activity is not necessarily wrong or invalid. ~ Elena Kagan

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes. ~ Oscar Wilde

My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. ~ Noam Chomsky

My parents did great and provided well, and gave all their kids personal, moral, ethical values, not a belief that we were entitled to something. ~ Bonnie Hammer

The scientific world-picture vouchsafe a very complete understanding of all that happens - it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clock-work, which for all that science knows could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavour, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it - though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this, that, for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it it gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed.

In particular, and most importantly, this is the reason why the scientific world-view contains of itself no ethical values, no aesthetical values, not a word about our own ultimate scope or destination, and no God, if you please. Whence came I, whither go I?

Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears.

Science, we believe, can, in principle, describe in full detail all that happens in the latter case in our sensorium and 'motorium' from the moment the waves of compression and dilation reach our ear to the moment when certain glands secrete a salty fluid that emerges from our eyes. But of the feelings of delight and sorrow that accompany the process science is completely ignorant - ~ Erwin Schrodinger

There are few people who are mature enough to uphold moral and ethical values; who have a remarkable character; who are honest and sincere; who cultivate and harbor loyalty, devotion and dedication by rendering a striking admiration. ~ Sandeep N. Tripathi

Undeniably, character does count for our citizens, out communities, and our Nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives ... core ethical values of trustworthiness, fairness, responsibility, caring, respect, and citizenship form the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and our society ... Instilling sound character in our children is essential to maintaining the strength of our Nation into the 21st century. ~ William J. Clinton

In today's society, people use those qualities - I call them qualities - for all things. It is for self-gratification. It is for sex. It is for excitment. This kind of fervor servers it's own purpose. It doesn't obey rules. It runs amok. You see it on the news everyday, but society cannot hang it's moral and ethical values on me to survive. i do what I must in all ways, and I'm proud of it. The necessity to be myself passes all moral barriers. ~ Richard Ramirez

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores. ~ Lorin Maazel

I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself to say this, a man must destroy in himself all feelings of mercy and compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes. No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery. The ~ Bertrand Russell

There is nothing wrong with being well off as long as money has a social and ethical value and is not the object of one's own greed. ~ Aga Khan IV

Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. ~ Emma Goldman

Religion must affirm, in the clearest terms, that morality and ethical values are not mere decorative frills of personal opinion, not subjective superstructure, but intrinsic laws of the cosmos built into the heart of reality. ~ Bhikkhu Bodhi

There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. ~ Albert Einstein

What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics. ~ Albert Einstein

True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace. ~ Pope John Paul II

The value of experimentation is not the trying. It's the trying again after the experiment fails. ~ Simon Sinek

Wouldn't it be great if life was only Legos? If we could give our kids the right, simple building blocks? ~ Chris Bent

Shame resilience is the ability to say, This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame. ~ Brene Brown

The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step. ~ A. J. Jacobs

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

I was an awful critic. I operated on the assumption that there was an absolute scale of values against which art could be measured. I didn't trust my own subjective responses. ~ Tom Stoppard

Among people I have met, the few whom I would term "great" all share a kind of unquestioned, fierce dedication; an utter lack of doubt about the value of their activities (or at least an internal impulse that drives through any such angst); and above all, a capacity to work (or at least to be mentally alert for unexpected insights) at every available moment of every day of their lives. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Shared beliefs and values form the heart of every successful relationship and ultimately determine its success. ~ Frank Sonnenberg

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,
frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company. ~ Jonathan Swift

Toleration and freedom and fairness are values too, and they can hardly be defended by the claim that no values can be defended. So it is a mistake to affirm ... that all values are merely subjective. ~ Michael J. Sandel

I mean, there are some amazing storytelling being done on the small screen right now. That's what so cool about being in television right now. Studios, networks are starting to throw more resources, better writers, more production values ... and to be part of that is awesome. ~ Ian Somerhalder

Moral questions may not have objective answers-whether revealed by God or by science-but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need. That rationality can only be discovered through exercising the human potential for rational dialogue, the potential for thinking about the world, and for discussing, debating and persuading others. Values can never be entirely wrenched apart from facts; but neither can they be collapsed into facts. It is the existence of humans as moral agents that allows us to act as the bridge between facts and values. ~ Kenan Malik

Self-motivation becomes easier when we see our choices as affirmations of our deeper values and goals. ~ Charles Duhigg

In a democracy, of course, you always get a choice:
Do you want to be governed by the red or by the blue? It's entirely up to you.
Do you want to be patronized or condescended to by liars or by crooks? You get to choose.
Would you prefer your fundamental values to be insulted or ignored by con men or by charlatans?
In short, do you want your influence to be zero or nil?
And when would you like to be listened to, never or not at all?
It's your choice. Do you want some more choice?
Take it or leave it. Now there's a real choice. ~ Pat Condell

Who could doubt that sport is a crucial window for the propagation of fair play and justice? After all, fair play is a value that is essential to sport. ~ Nelson Mandela

We shall never understand the ethical system taught by Jesus unless we realize that he was a Jew, not only by birth, but that he lived and taught as a Jew; the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to his distracted fellow nationals. ~ Arthur Keith

The values we rightly associate with the modern age - the "liberty, equality, and fraternity" of the French revolution - are all endangered today not by the dead hand of tradition but by modernity itself, and they can be salvaged only by moving beyond it. ~ Harvey Cox

Why does such fine-tuning occur? And the answer many physicists now believe: the multiverse.

A vast number of universes may exist, with many different values of the amount of dark energy.

Our particular hat containing zillions of universes, we happened to draw a universe that allowed life. ~ Alan Lightman

Facts and values are entangled in science. It's not because scientists are biased, not because they are partial or influenced by other kinds of interests, but because of a commitment to reason, consistency, coherence, plausibility and replicability. These are value commitments. ~ Alva Noe

God must have a weird sense of values, and if there's a Judgment Day, as some folks think, He's going to have a lot to answer for. ~ Philip Appleman

The greatest virtue a person can have is not the fortune of material goods, but the fortune of intellectual values. This is the only way this world can be a better place. ~ Maria Karvouni

We have to be in a listening mode: it is about dialogue, about listening to what the others have to say, about cooperating in the best way possible. These are the values and principles that we put forward. ~ Pierre Vimont

Much of the left-liberal elite despise traditional religious beliefs ... in general, they are profoundly uncomfortable with religious institutions and the traditional values they embody. ~ William Bennett

Leadership reveals itself in the big moments, but is forged in the small. It is the exponential and compounding product of our many incremental behaviors and actions; all of which arise out of our choices in values, beliefs & emotions. Choices all. Not a one is thrust upon us. ~ Christopher Babson

Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention. ~ Deepak Chopra

I'm tired of being considered some kind of criminal or dangerous throwback for no other reason than that I value, exercise, and defend my rights under the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution. ~ L. Neil Smith

Dawn is purely a work of fiction, but I wrote it to look at myself in a new way. Obviously I did not live this tale, but I was implicated in its ethical dilemma from the moment that I assumed my character's place. ~ Elie Wiesel

A market economy is a tool - a valuable and effective tool - for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavour. It's a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market. ~ Michael Sandel

I am someone who values knowledge, actual knowledge. I also value stories and fiction a whole lot, and that's where the fake knowledge comes in. ~ John Hodgman

The success of Prozac says that today's high-tech capitalism values a very different temperament. Confidence, flexibility, quickness, and energy - the positive aspects of hyperthymia - are at a premium. ~ Peter D. Kramer

History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices. ~ Bill Watterson

A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values. ~ Barack Obama

You're talking like a Stalinist!' I cried. 'People don't get jobs to achieve things and learn values! They do it because they have to, and then they use whatever's left over to buy themselves things that make them feel less bad about having jobs! Can't you see, it's just a terrible vicious circle! ~ Paul Murray

But, like all metaphoric wars, the copyright wars are not actual conflicts of survival. Or at least, they are not conflicts for survival of a people or a society, even if they are wars of survival for certain businesses or, more accurately, business models. Thus we must keep i mind the other values or objectives that might also be affected by this war. We must make sure this war doesn't cost more than it is worth. We must be sure it is winnable, or winnable at a price we're willing to pay. ~ Lawrence Lessig

Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity in doubt. ~ Alexander Lowen

I think wealthy conservatives are busy investing in profit and job creation and enterprise, and wealthy liberals, many of them either from the media industry themselves or from - they recognize the value of communications and are more ready to put money into a less profitable enterprise, namely the media. ~ Karl Rove

What is technically called the 'fungibility' of money, is its chief value as an article of commerce; and this fact could not long remain recognized, even by such a conservative class as legal officials. ~ Edward Jenks

Credit or debit cards, for starters, are nothing short of shoppers' Novocain. Even in the age of digital purchases and virtual money, we still attach a special value to dirty paper with pictures of presidents on it. Handing some of that to a cashier simply hurts more than handing over a little sliver of plastic. ~ Jeffrey Kluger

Is it any more moral to dilute the value of the purchasing power of the money you hold in your wallet than it is for the farmer to dilute the milk supply with water? ~ Ron Paul

Having children-the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings-is the biggest job anyone can embark on. You have to take a leap of faith and ask lots of people for their help and guidance. ~ Maria Shriver

With the coming of television, and the knowledge of how it could be used to seduce voters, the old political values disappeared. Something new, murky, undefined started to rise from the mists. ~ Joe McGinniss

The strength of a man is in his character. A strong man is great man of wisdom who understands, his top priority is to his family. ~ Ellen J. Barrier

I didn't feel that I was an American at all, with all that suburban ideal and sex repression and general dreary newspaper grey censorship of all our real human values ... ~ Jack Kerouac

Escapism has value, even if I don't know what its value is, exactly. Maybe it's just part of some healthy way that we deal with the world. ~ Lev Grossman

I see a wonderful future in a very uncertain world. If we will cling to our values, if we will build on our inheritance, if we will walk in obedience before the Lord, if we will simply live the gospel we will be blessed in a magnificent and wonderful way. We will be looked upon as a peculiar people who have found the key to a peculiar happiness. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley