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Ethics Quotes

Browse 3072 quotes about Ethics.

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Ethics Quotes

“No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics.”

MayDoePrinciplesDemocracySocietyProduceDisciplineLimitsAuthorityEthicsClimateToleranceRegimesCoexistenceIrresponsibility
Author:Paulo Freire
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“Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work.”

IfsTryingDoePlayBigsInterestPartyPayGroupsInfluenceSpecialLimitsBenefitsEthicsSpendingCampaignsFinanceReformOfficialsExceptionSpecial InterestsContractorInterest GroupsPublic OfficialsCampaign FinanceSpecial Interest Groups
Author:Thomas Kean, Jr.
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“From the ethical point of view, no one can escape responsibility with the excuse that he is only an individual, on whom the fate of the world does not depend. Not only can this not be known objectively for certain, because it is always possible that it will depend precisely on the individual, but this kind of thinking is also made impossible by the very essence of ethics, by conscience and the sense of responsibility.”

ThinkingWorldKindDoeMadeCertainIndividualViewsResponsibilityKnownFateImpossibleDependsEthicsConscienceEssenceExcusePoint Of ViewEthicalSense Of Responsibility
Author:Gyorgy Lukacs
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“What good men most biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world - temperamental, moody, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy. Your true biologist will sing you a song as loud and off-key as will a blacksmith, for he knows that morals are too often diagnostic of prostatitis and stomach ulcers. Sometimes he may proliferate a little too much in all directions, but he is as easy to kill as any other organism, and meanwhile he is very good company, and at least he does not confuse a low hormone productivity with moral ethics.”

KnowsMenWorldMayLittlesDoeSometimesSongEasyCompanyMoralLaughingToo MuchKeysHealthyLowsEthicsVery GoodProductivityLoudGood ManStomachOrganismsHormonesAnd OffBiologistGood CompanyMoodyTenorsMoral EthicsUlcersBlacksmiths
Author:John Steinbeck
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“War proves nothing. To kill a man does not prove that he was in the wrong. Bloodletting cannot change men's spirits, neither can the evil of men's thoughts be driven out by blows. If I go to my neighbor's house, and break her furniture, and smash her pictures, and bind her children captive, it does not prove that I am fitter to live than she - yet according to ethics of nations it does. I have conquered her and she must pay me for my trouble; and her house and all that is left in it belongs to my heirs and successors, forever. That is war!”

IfsMenChildrenDoeWarSpiritEvilHouseLeftNationsPayBreakForeverTroubleProveEthicsBlowDrivenNeighborFurnitureHeirsCaptivesSuccessorsBloodletting
Book:In Times Like These
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“I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.”

IfsMenWorldGivingDoeSoulCareReligionTurnsSocialReligiousMoralProductsMoralityEthicsMen And WomenLogicInstitutionsAddValuableTraditionalCodeMysticismRitualFactoriesFairnessI CareCeremonyTheoreticalTheologicalSymmetryRespectabilityMoral CodeSolemnityReasonablenessSounder
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“Does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality - that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars? ... There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”

DoeWarDreamReligionNaturalMoralCrimeExampleMoralityCivilizationEthicsWeakAidsSignificantConclusionOur TimeOur DreamsMaintainingWarrantsSavageryMoral Life
Book:The Lessons of History
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“Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.”

IfsKnowsWellsDoeMadeCharacterUseHappensAttitudeGreaterPersonalityEthicsImportanceMannersManifestationInnateEtiquetteTriflingTriviality
Book:Emily Post's Etiquette
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“But what does it mean to be on God's side? I believe it starts with focusing on the common good - not just in politics, but in all the decisions we make in our personal, family, vocational, financial, communal, and, public lives. That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths - love your neighbor as yourself - still the most transformational ethic in history.”

BelieveWellsMeanDoeStillsCareI BelieveSidesDecisionCommonChristianityGroupsShareLove YouEthicsFinancialNeighborEchoesPublic LifeCommon GoodLove Your NeighborDecisions We MakeFaith In LoveLove Your Neighbor As Yourself
Author:Jim Wallis
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“My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world.”

WorldWayDoeImportantSufferingHumanityCompassionPracticeParticularBuddhismMoralityElementsEthicsBuddhistPerceivePoetry IsMotivatedWork Ethic
Author:Sam Hamill
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“It's true that to speak of an ethic of giftedness, which is very much the ethic that I deploy in raising questions about designer children and genetic engineering - an appreciation of the giftedness of the child or the giftedness of life does have religious resonance, because a great many religious traditions emphasize the sense in which the good things in life are not all our own doing; they are gifts from God.”

ChildrenDoeSpeakReligiousEthicsTraditionGood ThingsAppreciationDesignerGreat MenEngineeringThings In LifeGift From GodResonanceReligious TraditionsGenetic EngineeringGiftednessGood Things In Life
Author:Michael Sandel
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“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.”

HeartKindDoeReasonEmotionMoralVirtueDutyEthicsOppositesVicesDescriptionEthicalDividesAnticipateMoral VirtuesReason And Emotion
Author:Allen W. Wood
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“My question is about the head of the Office of Government Ethics. Is he acting ethically when he sent out nine tweets praising Donald Trump saying that his plan was brilliant. How did he come to that conclusion? And how does come to his current conclusions having never done an investigation and never looked at the paperwork in the point where he can actually come to a reasonable conclusion?I think that's unethical.”

ThinkingDoeDoneGovernmentActingPlansTrumpOfficeEthicsPraiseCurrentsBrilliantNineConclusionReasonableInvestigationTweetPaperworkUnethical
Author:Jason Chaffetz
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“To me, it really seems visible today that ethics is not something exterior to the economy, which, as technical matter, could function on its own; rather, ethics is an interior principle of the economy itself, which cannot function if it does not take account of the human values of solidarity and reciprocal responsibility.”

IfsHumansDoeMatterSeemsTodayValuesResponsibilityPrinciplesEconomyEthicsAccountsFunctionVisibleSolidarityInteriorsExteriorHuman ValuesReciprocal
Author:Pope Benedict XVI
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“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”

IfsDoeFreedomAnimalCompassionKindnessMankindCreaturesLimitsEthicsRootsEmbraceDepthCrueltyVegetarianVeganAnimal RightsAnimal WelfareAnimal CrueltyLiving CreaturesAnimal LoveLove And CompassionBreadthKindness And CompassionHuman AnimalAnimal WorldSentient BeingsHumans And AnimalsPet AnimalsAnimal LifeAnimal CompassionThinking ManAnimal EthicsCruel WorldAnimal TestingAnimals In NatureNature And AnimalsCompassion For YourselfSmall CreaturesRespect LifeHuman Beings And Animals
Book:A Selection of Writings of and about Albert Schweitzer
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“We can say that true gratitude does not give rise to the debtor's ethic because it gives rise to faith in future grace. With true gratitude there is such a delight in the worth of God's past grace, that we are driven on to experience more and more of it in the future...it is done by transforming gratitude into faith as it turns from contemplating the pleasures of past grace and starts contemplating the promises of the future.”

GivingDoeDonePastTurnsPleasureGraceGratitudePromiseEthicsDelightDrivenContemplatingTransformingDebtorsPromise Of The Future
Author:John Piper
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“In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that's why you're not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.”

IfsWantDoeOrderTurnsGrowthKnownVirtueNeededDiversityEthicsWheelsSoilFascismSaltGrainFascistsFertileImpurityMustardEither OrImmaculateDissensionGrain Of Salt
Book:The periodic table
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“No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“God is the creator of all things, right? He is the force that dictates the laws of the universe, and is therefore the ultimate source of ethics. He is absolute morality... We claim to be doing good. But the Lord Ruler - as God - defines what is good. So by opposing him we're actually evil. But since he's doing the wrong thing, does evil actually count as good in this case?”

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Book:Mistborn Trilogy
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“In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense. What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.”

MeanDoeActionHappinessSpiritualSufferingQualityCompassionWorryEthicsConcernUniversalImpactHarmToleranceGenuineIntenseDimensionsOthers HappinessConcern For OthersGenuine HappinessWorry Less
Author:Dalai Lama
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“The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult, ethical controversies of the day. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time. Every field has its complexities and controversies. And so does ethics. And every field has its basics. So too with values.”

PeopleFirstsDoeIdeasDifferentCharacterYoungValuesDifficultMoralStepsVirtueFieldsEthicsTasksDiscussionComplexityEthicalTraitsControversyFormationBasicsOne Step At A TimeFirst Things FirstMoral Life
Author:William Bennett
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“[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty.”

MindDoeStillsActionSufferingHumanityGriefMoralPsychologyFateTearsDutyEthicsResourcesBusyDistressParticipationInclinationSympatheticCloudedInsensibility
Author:Immanuel Kant
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