Quotes About Ethics

If you have a mental model that says big corporations are fundamentally greedy and selfish and exploitative, you don't really want to have an exception to that model. It's much easier to say, 'Yes, Whole Foods has been corrupted.'

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.

I think anytime that somebody that works for the government lies, yes, they should be removed.

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

The problem with Bush is that yes, he's religious in a fundamentalist sort of way, they read the Old Testament as a sort of charter for the chosen people to do what they like.

I mentioned it yesterday: I'm one of these people that - I don't - like, on the abortion issue, it's not something that - I'm very uncomfortable talking about it. I'm not gonna kid you. It's a very uncomfortable thing. I think that it's a legal issue. Definitely a legal issue. It's been decided upon by our Supreme Court.

Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one's well-being.

Cases like Power Traders Press are just as important as cases like Mobile TeleSystems. In my view, our best cases are those that yield tangible results for everyday people.

Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature.

Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?

A man must fortify himself and understand that a wise man who yields to laziness or anger or passion or love of drink, or who commits any other action prompted by impulse and inopportune, will probably find his fault condoned; but if he stoops to greed, he will not be pardoned, but render himself odious as a combination of all vices at once.

So many people are stealing Bikram Yoga. It's like you're practicing medicine, but you're not a doctor.

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.

It is imperative that we set the national example and make it clear that companies seeking to do business in New York City cannot be allowed to treat their workers like second-class citizens.

New York state ethics rules prohibit lawyers from soliciting gifts from clients 'for the benefit of the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer.'

All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at 'The Washington Post,' 'The New York Times,' and the three original TV networks.

These newspaper reporters... ever since Sullivan versus New York Times... have got a license to lie.

Veteran print editors and reporters at places like the 'Times' and 'The New Yorker' manage to feed and clothe their families without costing their companies a million bucks a month, and they produce a great deal more valuable reporting and analysis than the network news stars do.

In 2004, Lawrence Wright wrote in the 'New Yorker' about 'The Kingdom of Silence,' where a massive sewer project in Jeddah was really a series of manhole covers across the city with no actual pipes underneath. I, as the editor of a major paper at the time, can say that we all knew - and we never reported on it.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

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

If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

If you can't play the good guy, sometimes you've got to play the villain.