Ethics Quotes

• Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

  Potter Stewart

  Differences, Knowing, Business Ethics

  80 Copy quote

• Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

  Helen Keller

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Helen Keller (1957). “The Open Door”, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday

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• The time is always right to do what is right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Positive, Inspiring

  "This Dallas Boy's MLK Jr. Speech Is Such A Sweet Message For Today's World" by Sarah Friedmann, www.bustle.com. January 2018.

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• When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Positive, Religious

  Quoted inWilliam H. Herndon and JesseW.Weik, Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (1889)

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• Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

  Confucius

  Inspirational, Courage, Philosophical

  Confucius (1979). “Lunyu”

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• A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Success, Witty, Memorial Day

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1953

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  Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Love, Inspirational, Motivational

  162 Copy quote

• Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

  Albert Einstein

  Fun, Business, Ethics And Morals

  36 Copy quote

• In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

  Immanuel Kant

  Inspirational, Trust, Betrayal

  80 Copy quote

• Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion.

  Dalai Lama

  Karma, Believe, Principles

  48 Copy quote

• Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right.

  William E. Gladstone

  Inspirational, Peace, Politics

  72 Copy quote

• Without ethics, everything happens as if we were all five billion passengers on a big machinery and nobody is driving the machinery. And it's going faster and faster, but we don't know where.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Driving, Bigs, Machinery

  20 Copy quote

• In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

  Thomas Jefferson (2013). “The Jefferson Bible [annotated]: Original Old English Version and Modern Updates to The Jefferson Bible”, p.139, BookBaby

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• Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.

  Spencer Johnson

  Truth, Honesty, Integrity

  104 Copy quote

• Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

  "Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man". Book by William Hermanns, p. 143, 1983.

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• A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Sympathy, God, Death

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.39, Broadway Books

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• 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

  Inspirational, Cheating, Integrity

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.83, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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  Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

  Immanuel Kant

  Nature, Two, Awe And Wonder

  Critique of Practical Reason conclusion (1788) (translation by Lewis White Beck)

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• Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

  W. Clement Stone

  Strength, Inspiring, Courage

  "Teen Ink: What Matters". Book by Stephanie H. Meyer, John Meyer and Peggy Veljkovic (p. 309), April 15, 2003.

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• Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.

  Henry Miller

  Law, Miracle, Doctrine

  "Black Spring". Book by Henry Miller, 1936.

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

  Robert Noyce

  Business, Responsibility, Organization

  106 Copy quote

• We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

  Pema Chodron

  Integrity, Heart, Compassion

  21 Copy quote

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

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Ethics And Morals, Morality, Moral Ethics

  15 Copy quote

• I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Law, Wells

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.339

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• Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Hope, Lying, Character

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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