Ethical Quotes

See also Core English Vocabulary (E) Quotes

"The challenge in playing Bess (in Breaking the Waves) is that, in physical, psychological, intellectual, moral, ethical and political terms, she`s a disaster - part saint, part clown. But she has an infinite capacity to love and believe. I tried to make the logic of that transcend those judgements."

- Emily Watson

I think my uncle was probably the biggest influence in my life. We grew up in the same house, and he was just a really great, hard-working, honest, ethical person.

- Catherine Bell

The best part? Probably being able to portray such a respectable, ethical, intelligent, strong woman. That`s still pretty rare in our business, unfortunately.

- Catherine Bell

On human embryonic stem cell research: "I found that the cloning of human embryos will be used in the process and that, for me, I have an ethical problem with that. Why do I, as a taxpayer, have to fund something I believe is unethical?"

- Mel Gibson

When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good.

- Paul Newman

In Survivor and Finder`s Fee, it is about what you would do if you could get away with it. Survivor is about your own integrity and where you draw your own ethical and moral lines. There are no rules.

- Jeff Probst

Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

- Albert Einstein

For me, going vegan was an ethical and environmental decision. I`m doing the right thing by the animals.

- Alexandra Paul

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

- Mary McCarthy

At this point in the proceedings I don`t see (ethical funds) selling BHP. But if it got a lot worse from this point there would be some managers who would say they can`t hold the company at this time.

- Michael Walsh

Our members will be ambassadors for ethical hunting, respect for private property rights, support for conservation funding and programs that give our children the chance to learn the valuable lessons of nature.

- Gary Morris

There are definite benefits for cancer patients among the ethical complementary cancer therapies,

- Michael Lerner

Abby would do things that weren`t very ethical, but she was never evil. She had a humanity that characters like her on the other soaps didn`t have.

- Donna Mills

I am not sure what I am going to do for my next film, but I certainly believe that I have no right to tell another couple whether they can or cannot be married. That is simply not allowed in my ethical book of standards. I am a very spiritual person - I don`t talk about it publicly that much, but I went to the seminary when I was in high school; I read the New Testament. And let me tell you something: There is nowhere in the four Gospels where Jesus uses the word homosexual, nor the word abortion. The right wing has appropriated this guy. It makes you think, what someone can do in your name a thousand years from now. And they have used him to attack gays and lesbians, when he never said a single word against people who are homosexual. Anyone who professes to be a Christian and does that is certainly not following the teachings of Jesus Christ.

- Michael Moore

I saw Vera Drake and Mike Leigh is a masterful filmmaker. I think it`s indisputable. He works with actors like no one else. It`s beautifully shot and beautifully played. And yet at the same time, I just want to scream! I say, would it have been a sin for her to take money for a job well done? Does she have to be sanctified? I can`t take it, just how all the liberals, we all go in to see the movie and in a sense it turns us all into martyrs for the good fight. But it`s clearly not an examination of the ethical nature and so forth, it`s just a given that this is the good fight and we are martyrs for this cause. There`s another movie, a lovely film, wonderfully directed, Maria Full of Grace. There`s a scene in the movie where you have this 17-year-old pregnant girl in Queens and she sees Women`s Health Services, and she goes there. What`s the purpose of the scene? All it does is tell us that the baby is okay. I just want to scream! She stays in American, 17, pregnant, no money, no friends, doesn`t speak the language. I mean, really, the only thing she`s equipped to do is be a prostitute. To me, it`s just the falseness of that stay-on-in-America, land-of-hope and so forth, the falseness just makes me want to scream. It`s faux-liberal, in fact. I guess it`s just being patted on the back, being told, `You`re doing the right thing.` There`s no questioning. There`s no examination. There`s no stopping to think.

- Todd Solondz

This is one of those case where there can be multiple, justifiable ethical right answers.

- Bob Steele

Stem cell research must be carried out in an ethical manner in a way that respects the sanctity of human life.

- John Boehner

Is it ethical to take a life to save a life?...It`s never right to create and then kill one person to find a cure another.

- The Angel

They`re passing legislation against something they don`t even understand, which is kind of scary. There were lots of rules and regulations I built into it personally to make it safe and ethical.

- John Lockwood

Whether that`s a suspension, whether that`s booting someone off the team, he has to take decisive action. It`s an absolute, rock-bottom, moral and ethical kind of thing. When it happens on your watch, you`ve got to deal with it.

- Mike Morris

Can something be ethical but illegal?

- John Gross

The Ethical Society, therefore, is like a Church in maintaining, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining the custom of public assemblies on Sunday.

- Felix Adler

The ethical manifold, conceived of as unified, furnishes, or rather is, the ideal of the whole.

- Felix Adler

The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon.

- Felix Adler

Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.

- Felix Adler

The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs.

- John Dos Passos

The issues involved are sufficiently important that courses are now moving out of the philosophy departments and into mainstream computer science. And they affect everyone. Many of the students attracted to these courses are not technology majors, and many of the topics we discuss relate to ethical challenges that transcend the computer world.

- Michael Quinn

The soldiers thing, I think the Italians picked it up first. I`ve done interviews with the Italians, the French, Amsterdam. ... They were very critical, saying the US wouldn`t pick it up, because it`s such a sore spot. ... It raises too many ethical questions. ... I started to laugh, because it`s true.

- Chris Wilson

In a situation where many national leaders do the same thing and look out for national interests, and with an issue like global warming, you`re likely to get no solution, so I think you have to have some kind of ethical trump on some of those issues.

- Peter Singer

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and thin what we ought to do about it.

- Peter Singer

You might hold an ethical position that it`s wrong to lie, but if you have plans for a war in Iraq, and you want to keep them secret for practical reasons - to reduce casualties, perhaps - and someone asks you about those plans, you may need to lie for a `good` outcome.

- Peter Singer

My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues.

- Peter Singer

At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn`t mean that you can`t think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of places.

- Peter Singer

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.

- Aeschines

Over the past two decades, we have clearly seen an erosion of ethical values.

- Al Ford

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that contains moral, ethical, and legal truisms that any person of any religion or even an atheist can recognize and appreciate.

- Alan Lloyd

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

- Alan Mattox

It is straightforward for me to be ethical, responsible, and kind-hearted because I have the resources to support that.

- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Our Nation`s scientific research must adhere to the highest ethical standards. But it is important that we do embryonic stem cell research.

- Alberto Melloni

Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.

- Alex Eckelberry

If you deny that any principles of conduct at all are common to and admitted by all men who try to behave reasonably - well, I don`t see how you can have any ethics or any ethical background for law.

- Alex Fisher

Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm.

- Alex Garwood

Education is the art of making man ethical.

- Alex Kornhauser

At the same time we are aware that our various religions and ethical traditions often offer very different bases for what is helpful and what is unhelpful for men and women, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil.

- Alexander Eliot

If you build that foundation, both the moral and the ethical foundation, as well as the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won`t crumble.

- Alexander The Great

If you don`t have integrity, you have nothing. You can`t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.

- Alexander The Great

And I think that what is of concern is that they seem to be bringing skills from the scientific world into the interrogation room in a way that begs a lot of questions about whether it`s ethical.

- Ali Abdel Fattah

The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of all ethical standards.

- Alice Raine

The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientist, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath.

- Allan Walsh

Olympism is a philosophy which, by blending sport with culture, seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal ethical principles.

- Allen Abney