Quotes About Ethos

I don't want to be good; and I don't want to be bad: I just don't want to be bothered about either good or bad: I want to be an active verb.

I do not want to gain a reputation for lacking discipline because I always look to play within the laws.

I feel like I'm going to have a long career and you don't want to get a bad reputation for certain things.

The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint.

I don't want to collect any paychecks as a cheerleader on the sideline.

I like the ethos of the military and the idea of joining an institution in which, at the very least, everyone who signs up believes in something.

The Bhagavad-Gita changes this. It takes the Warrior Ethos and elevates it to a loftier and nobler plane—the plane of the individual's inner life, to his struggle to align himself with his own higher nature.

The will to fight, the passion to be great, is an indispensable element of the Warrior Ethos. It is also a primary quality of leadership, because it inspires men and fires their hearts with ambition and the passion to go beyond their own limits.

The lioness hunts. The alpha female defends the wolf pack. The Warrior Ethos is not, at bottom, a manifestation only of male aggression or of the masculine will to dominance. Its foundation is society-wide. It rests on the will and resolve of mothers and wives and daughters—and, in no few instances, of female warriors as well—to defend their children, their home soil and the values of their culture.

The satiric ethos of Mad was a much bigger childhood influence.

It is not whether your words or actions are tough or gentle; it is the spirit behind your actions and words that announces your inner state.

Our ideals are our better selves.

If you were the boss of a company and some of the employees of your company were known to sexually abuse children, you would fire them instantly.

I really want to institute a culture that has nothing to do with shots or minutes or anything like that. It starts with a foundation of service.

Material interests are not the only guiding light.

The trick has been to live in the contradictions while maintaining principles, beliefs, and purpose.

I am a man of principle, and one of my basic principles is flexibility.

The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.

The pre-Socratic aphorism—ethos is the daemon—can be translated as "character is fate." In drama, character is action. Shakespeare, too capacious for any formula, leads me to a rival aphorism: Pathos also is the daemon, which could be rendered as "personality is our destiny." In Shakespearean theatricalism, personality is suffering. Action, Wordsworth wrote, is momentary, while suffering is permanent, obscure, dark, and shares the nature of infinity.

To work in an organization whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one's own condemns a person both to frustration and to nonperformance.

I just think there is a right way to do things, and I don't think two wrongs make a right.

My mother always taught me that two wrongs don't make a right. We shouldn't bail out Wall Street. We shouldn't bail out Detroit. It will cost the economy more than the cost of the bailout which is more than the politicians think. We'll run into the hundred of millions to prop these companies up.

A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.