Moral Ethics Quotes

If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. ~ Robert Noyce

It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values. By inner values, I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warm-heartedness-or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner value emerge. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth. ~ Ayn Rand

Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which people transform the world. To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. People are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection. ~ Paulo Freire

There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the other fellow to make the make the first move - and he, in turn, waits for you. ~ Marian Anderson

There is an ancient Indian saying: "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." If we use this ethic as a moral compass, then our rendezvous with reality can also become a rendezvous with opportunity. ~ Patricia Schroeder

Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for. ~ Harold S. Kushner

The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance of the term, for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. ~ Okakura Kakuzo

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity. ~ Samuel Richardson

One reason for the decline in moral values is that the world has invented a new, constantly changing and undependable standard of moral conduct referred to as "situational ethics." Now, individuals define good and evil as being adjustable according to each situation; this is in direct contrast to the proclaimed God-given absolute standard: "Thou shalt not!"-as in "Thou shalt not steal". ~ David B. Haight

I care not for the body which may rot. Yet, for the transgression of the spirit, of moral ethics, of life, liberty and the soul itself, I must and shall cross the line of battle or lose the very reason not to. ~ The Great Pacifist

Virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence. ~ Aristotle.

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be-both in their youth and in adulthood-intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience. ~ Alice Miller

A story is told as much by silence as by speech. ~ Susan Griffin

Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context. ~ Steven Erikson

I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second. ~ Thomas Jefferson

[R]eason is ... given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will ... ~ Immanuel Kant

If we cannot be decent, let us endeavor to be graceful. If we can't be moral, at least we can avoid being vulgar. ~ Langdon Elwyn Mitchell

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. ~ Henry David Thoreau

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. ~ H.L. Mencken

Integrity is the essence of everything successful. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. ~ Bertrand Russell

Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral. ~ Walter Lippmann

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating
negative emotions, should be a defensive measure. At least we will be able to prevent the advent of negative conduct dominated by negative emotion. That is 'shila', or moral ethics. Once we develop this by familiarizing ourselves with it, along with mindfulness and conscientiousness, eventually that pattern and way of life will become a part of our own life. ~ Dalai Lama

Only science can hope to keep technology in some sort of moral order. ~ Edgar Friedenberg

The wrongfulness, the immorality of eating animal food has been recognized by all mankind during all the conscious life of humanity. Why, then have people generally not come to acknowledge this law? The answer is that the moral progress of humanity is always slow; but that the sign of true, not casual Progress, is in uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And one cannot doubt that vegetarianism has been progressing in this manner ~ Leo Tolstoy

We are more inclined to regret our virtues than our vices; but only the very honest will admit this. ~ Holbrook Jackson

If the present civilisation does not acquire some stable moral fondations ("bases morales stables", Fr.), its existence will hardly be more assured than that of the civilisations that have preceeded it, and which have fallen (or collapse, or failed ~ African Spir

If surrealism ever comes to adopt a particular line of moral conduct, it has only to accept the discipline that Picasso has accepted and will continue to accept. ~ Andre Breton

The Seductive Lure of Socialism Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free. ~ Frederic Bastiat

I am not happy with moral victories. Those things are forgotten. ~ Bobby Bowden

The more we look at anything, the more we see ourselves in the thing. This is called projection. There's an ethics to projection, an unhinged sense of honesty. Honesty is complicated. The truth is fascinatingly flexible. Lying is boundless. It knows no limits. People lie all the time. Lying is an instinct. It's human nature. We lie to each other; we lie to ourselves. It isn't right, but we do. ~ Kris Kidd

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? - no reality - how can you prove that the tunnel exists? - no logic - why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? - no principles - why should you be bound by the law of cause-and-effect? - no rights - why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force? - no morality - what's moral about running a railroad? - no absolutes - what difference does it make to you whether you live or die, anyway? He taught that we know nothing - why oppose the orders of your superiors? - that we can never be certain of anything - how do you know you're right? - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - you don't want to risk your job, do you? The ~ Ayn Rand

Puritanism, he said, was a reaction to the loss of moral fiber that accompanied the Renaissance. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases; she gives us greater courage ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Having a better knowledge of yourself should make you more tolerant and understanding. You should learn to communicate in such a way that your values never come into conflict with those of the people around you. ~ Prem Jagyasi

Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the unlimited and good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult - to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue; For men are good in but one way, but bad in many. ~ Aristotle.

I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Science corrects the old creeds, sweeps away, with every new perception, our infantile catechisms, and necessitates a faith commensurate with the grander orbits and universal laws which it discloses yet it does not surprise the moral sentiment that was older and awaited expectant these larger insights. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I come from the home-grown punk ethic, where it doesn't matter if you can't play a note, it's how you communicate. ~ Siobhan Fahey

A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self. Every attempt to live as if he were alone is a denial of the fact that he is actually responsible. He cannot escape the responsibility, which is his because he is a father. This reality refutes the fictitious notion that the isolated individual is the agent of all ethical behavior. It is not the isolated individual but the responsible person who is the proper agent to be considered in ethical reflection. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

At my first press conference I was asked whether we could trust the Soviet Union, and I said that the answer to that question could be found in the writings of Soviet leaders: It had always been their philosophy that it was moral to lie or cheat for the purpose of advancing Communism. ~ Ronald Reagan

The root of my understanding of the attributes of God is simply that when I come to God, my need will determine which of God's attributes, at that moment, I need to celebrate. Just as the judgment of God is God's justice confronting moral iniquity, and then judgment falls, so the mercy of God is God's goodness confronting human guilt and suffering. ~ A.W. Tozer

"Teachers" ... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not by imposing their own moralities on them but by positing situations that pose hard moral choices and then encouraging conflict and debate. They seek to help students rise to higher stages of moral reasoning and hence to higher levels of principled judgment. ~ James MacGregor Burns

[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a divine punishment or the hope of a divine reward. It strips us of the right to make our own determination, as all humans always have, about what is and what is not a right human action. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The desire not to use disparaging terms for other groups can have its comic side, and is often dismissed as a product of 'political correctness'. But the concern behind it is part of the growth of one of our central moral resources. ~ Jonathan Glover

What woman worthy of the name Mother would stand on a high moral platform about selling her body if her child were dying of hunger and exposure? Not I. ~ Jennifer Worth

There is only one way to respect the substance of any purported God-given moral edict: consider it conscientiously in the full light of reason, using all the evidence at our command. No God that was pleased by displays of unreasoning love would be worthy of worship. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

Writers haven't got any rockets to blast off. We don't even trundle the most insignificant auxiliary vehicle. We haven't got any military might. So what can literature do in the face of the merciless onslaught of open violence? One word of truth outweighs the whole world. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

...To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity, "labor power" cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting the human individual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In disposing of a man's labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity of "man" attached to the tag. Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes defiled, rovers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed... ~ Karl Polanyi

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are affected more by the idea of fame than the actual work ethic involved. A lot of them just want to be reality TV-type people who don't do anything. ~ Katy Perry

One thing I learned as a journalist is that there is at least one disgruntled person in every workplace in America
and at least double that number with a conscience. Hard as they try, they simply can't turn their heads away from an injustice when they see one taking place. ~ Michael Moore

Solving a murder is not about serving the victim, because the victim is, after all, dead. Solving a murder serves society by restoring the moral order that has been upset by the gunshot or knife strike or poisoning, and it serves to preserve that moral order by warning others that certain acts cannot be committed with impunity. ~ Ben H. Winters

Rise above principle and do what is right. ~ Walter Heller

The American color bar unless speedily removed will be the rock on which our international Good Neighbor policy and our pious claims to moral leadership will founder. ~ Charles Hamilton Houston