Quotes About Ethics

The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright.

If we say of a boy or a man, "He is of good character," we mean that he does not do a great many things that are wrong, and we also mean that he does do a great many things which imply much effort of will and readiness to face what is disagreeable. He must not steal, he must not be intemperate, he must not be vicious in any way; he must not be mean or brutal; he must not bully the weak. In fact, he must refrain from whatever is evil. But besides refraining from evil, he must do good.

The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion.

Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.

Let these innocent people be careful not to invest in corporations where those in control are not men of probity, men who respect the laws; above all let them avoid the men who make it their one effort to evade or defy the laws.

To educate a person without teaching ethics is to create a menace to society.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of Decency.

There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.

In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Killing a deer from a boat while the poor animal is swimming in the water, or on snowshoes as it flounders helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be justified on the plea of hunger. This is also true of lying in wait at a lick. Whoever indulges in any of these methods, save from necessity, is a butcher pure and simple, and has no business in the company of true sportsmen.

We should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force or fraud.

There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life

We have come to a political deification of Mammon.

If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful.

To play the demagogue for purposes of self-interest is a cardinal sin against the people in a democracy, exactly as to play the courtier for such purposes is a cardinal sin against the people under other forms of government.

The loud-mouthed upholder of popular rights who attacks wickedness only when it is allied with wealth, and who never publicly assails any misdeed, no matter how flagrant, if committed nominally in the interest of labor, has either a warped mind or a tainted soul, and should be trusted by no honest man.

But we must keep steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.

Most certainly prize-fighting is not half as brutalizing or demoralizing as many forms of big business and of the legal work carried on in connection with big business.

I do not like to see young Christians with shoulders that slope like a champagne bottle.

If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.

The only way to get good service is to give somebody power to render it, facing the fact that power which will enable a man to do a job well will also necessarily enable him to do it ill if he is the wrong kind of man.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.