Ethical Quotes - Page 14

• My mind was by no means easy about the need to carry out a clandestine action in the sovereign territory of a friendly country, and the question of whether it was permissible to do so — from both the ethical and political points of view — had to be faced in all its gravity.

  Isser Harel

  Country, Mean, Views

  isser harel (1975). “the house on garibaldi street”

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• 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

  Pain, Believe, Men

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.217, Psychology Press

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• What conservation education must build is an ethical underpinning for land economics and a universal curiosity to understand the land mechanism. Conservation may then follow.

  Aldo Leopold

  Land, Curiosity, May

  Aldo Leopold (1972). “Round River”, p.114, Oxford University Press

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• It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Writing, Issues, Ethical Questions

  "Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould. "Unenchanted Evening", p. 39, 1993.

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• We are opposed to all cruelty, so as advocates of non-violence, opponents of oppression, people who abhor the cruelty inherent in slaughtering we say the only ethical way to consume flesh is to pick up the carcass of an animal who has died naturally or been killed accidentally, say by being hit by a car, and eat that.

  Ingrid Newkirk

  Animal, Car, People

  India Together, July 2000.

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• In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal god, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.

  Albert Einstein

  Beautiful, Teacher, Giving Up

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words”, p.25, Open Road Media

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• Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mean, Survival, Progress

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.327, University of Georgia Press

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• No science of any kind can be divorced from ethical considerations... Science is a human learning process which arises in certain subcultures in human society and not in others, and a subculture as we seen is a group of people defined by acceptance of certain common values, that is, an ethic which permits extensive communication between them.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Communication, Acceptance, People

  "Economics As A Moral Science" (1969) by Kenneth E. Boulding (p. 2), as quoted in "Kenneth Boulding as a Moral Scientist" by John B. Davis, 2011.

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• Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its own success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Community, Problem, Conflict

  "The diminishing returns of science" by Kenneth Boulding in "New Scientist", Vol. 49, nr. 744, p. (682), March 25, 1971.

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• There is nothing in the way of amelioration of the conditions of life, of politics, of social and ethical matters, that may not be affected through the skilful application of those principles of advertising that, in business, have proved to be so wonderfully effective.

  George Arthur French

  Principles, May, Matter

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• Men have discovered other philosophical and ethical systems, but they have not found another Jesus Christ. No one in history can match Him.

  Billy Graham

  Jesus, Philosophical, Men

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• Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery and would exist if all humanity forgets it, so it is with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forget them.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Spiritual, Father, Discovery

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Chicago Addresses”, p.13, Advaita Ashrama

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• Awakening is not a state but a process: an ethical way of life and commitment that enables human flourishing. As such, it is no longer the exclusive preserve of enlightened teachers or accomplished yogis. Likewise, nirvana-the stopping of craving-is not the goal of the path but its very source. For human flourishing first stirs in that clear, bright, empty space where neurotic self-centredness realizes that it has no ground at all to stand on. One is then freed to pour forth like sunlight.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Teacher, Commitment, Self

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• Be the most ethical, the most responsible, the most authentic you can be with every breath you take, because you are cutting a path into tomorrow that others will follow.

  Ken Wilber

  Cutting, Path, Tomorrow

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• My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state... 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

  Atrocities, Violence, Easy

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• An Albanian’s house is the dwelling of God and the guest.’ Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one’s guest. The guest, in an Albanian’s life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one’s father or of one’s son, but never the blood of a guest.

  Ismail Kadaré

  Father, Son, Men

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• The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christtian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting. (127)

  Swami Satchidananda

  Spiritual, Buddhism, Together

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• I think having the opportunity to get inside the skin of people that operate outside the law and normal moral and ethical restraints, and then to go home afterwards leaving them on set, is pretty cathartic. I get to play out all kinds of bad behavior without anyone actually coming to harm.

  Adam Croasdell

  Home, Opportunity, Thinking

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• Modern societies accepted the treasures and the power offered them by science. But they have not accepted - they have scarcely even heard - its profounder message: the defining of a new and unique source of truth, and the demand for a thorough revision of ethical premises, for a complete break with the animist tradition, the definitive abandonment of the 'old covenant', the necessity of forging a new one. Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already blasted at the root by science itself.

  Jacques Monod

  Unique, Roots, Trying

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• A good lawyer is part con man, part priest -- promising riches, threatening hell. My ethical rules are simple. I won't lie to the court or let a client do it. But I've never been in this position. How far would I go for a woman who mattered? Is there anything I wouldn't do to win?

  Paul Levine

  Lying, Winning, Simple

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• All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially the farmers, working class people and the very poor. Then as now Jews have to be reminded intermittently anew that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live.

  Pope Clement VIII

  Country, Class, Rights

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• In any case, his religious teaching consisted mostly in more or less vague ethical remarks, an obscure mixture of ideals of English gentlemanliness and his favorite notions of personal hygiene. Everybody knew that his class was liable to degenerate into a demonstration of some practical points about rowing, with Buggy sitting on the table and showing us how to pull an oar.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Religious, Teaching

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Christian's life in all its aspects-intellectual and ethical, devotional and relational, upsurging in worship and outgoing in witness-is supernatural; only the Spirit can initiate and sustain it. So apart from him, not only will there be no lively believers and no lively congregations, there will be no believers and no congregations at all.

  J. I. Packer

  Christian, Intellectual, Spirit

  J. I. Packer (2005). “Keep in Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God”, p.15, Baker Books

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• By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.

  Zhuangzi

  Taoism, Principles, Benefits

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• Most corporate mission statements are worthless. They consist largely of pious platitudes such as: "We will hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism and ethical behavior." They often formulate necessities as objectives; for example, "to achieve sufficient profit." This is like a person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently.

  Russell L. Ackoff

  Risk, Example, Management

  Russell L. Ackoff (1986). “Management in Small Doses”, Wiley

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