Quotes About Ethics

Since position and contact play so big a part in determining what can be seen, heard, read, and experienced, as well as what it is permissible to see, hear, read, and know, it is no wonder that moral judgment is so much more common than constructive thought.

how many teachers since Socrates actually lived what they taught?

I like the rules; following them proves to me that I'm a civilized man.

He might not be a good man but he is a good son.

No. What I wonder is why would you care?" "I'm a cop, LT. It's my job to protect the welfare of even garbage like you.

White slave masters used to conduct a discussion. They said, look, we have some blacks, what to do with them? Is it better to let him grow old and work for us for an extended period of time, or should we let him work for a specified period of time, work him so hard and let him die, and buy a fresh slave? And the consensus of opinion was this; take a prime African black, work him to death in five years, and you make a profit. So the system aimed at killing us out!

Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.

Rebecca! she who could prefer death to dishonor must have a proud and powerful soul!

It is by giving fair names to foul actions that those who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons, under the disguise of virtue.

Fear to do base unworthy things is valour;      If they be done to us, to suffer them      Is valour too.

mercy to a criminal may be gross injustice to the community.

If thou readest the Scripture, said the Jewess, and the lives of the saints, only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most healthful and necessary herbs.

Hunger and fear are excellent casuists.

it was Zenocrates, not Plato, who denied that pain was an evil.

cared for no rogues but their own

here is the stout Baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, whose utter abomination is a Jew; and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose trade is to slay Saracens—If these are not good marks of Christianity

God's commands are arbitrary if He has no reason to command one act rather than another; but, if He does have reasons for His commands, then His reasons rather than His commands are what make acts immoral.

I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.

In our book, alignment means being a partner in both directions, not just on the upside. Many "alignment" plans flunk this basic test, being artful forms of "heads I win, tails you lose.

Good behavior by each party begets good behavior in return.

A CEO's behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line: If it's clear to them that shareholders' interests are paramount to him, they will, with few exceptions, also embrace that way of thinking.