Quotes About Ethics

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

I worked in ad sales. I would call up local businesses and try to get them to buy ads in the paper. The whole time, I felt like I was just scamming people.

Corporate tax dodging impacts us across generations and over time. It is corrosive. It is unethical. It is unsustainable.

It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

In our fathers' time nothing was read but books of feigned chivalry, wherein a man by reading should be led to none other end, but only to manslaughter and bawdry.

But the time has come for journalists to acknowledge that a zone of privacy does exist.

Plagiarism saves time.

Somebody has to be prepared to be the good guy from time to time in order for the human race to prosper, though most people don't want it to be them.

What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

The sort of thinking at the time was, 'Well, we're giving you access to medical care which you wouldn't otherwise be able to get, so your payment is that we get to use you in research.'

In the end, we would like not to be guilty while at the same time being dispensed of the effort of purifying ourselves. Not enough cynicism and not enough virtue.

Anyone can forget about talent, but if you're a good person, your name will be remembered a long time.

There is no such thing as committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, for it is simply WRONG.

The use of fetuses as organ and tissue donors is a ticking time bomb of bioethics.

The one important thing you do as boss is you set the standard. The minute you go in and say 'we'll let it go this time,' you set a new standard, which is lower. So you cannot do that.

It is high time for some congressional oversight backbone.

I have a hard time with morals. All I know is what feels right, what's more important to me is being honest about who you are. Morals I get a little hung up on.

Every time new technology is introduced, especially involving reproduction, you get the 'yuck' effect.

To make a quick buck, but over time, if you're not creating value for others, customers, society, isn't going to let you be around.

Most of us are honest all the time, and all of us are honest most of the time.

Slavery was incredibly prosperous for some people, at that time. It was not a bad business plan, but it was terrible and inhumane. But as a business it worked.

I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.