Ethics Quotes

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Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

- Vaclav Havel

A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered. [From: An Ethical Philosophy of Life]

- Felix Adler

Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave.

- Aristotle

Ethics should precede economics... We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products -- from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of greater and greater profits.

- Arianna Huffington

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.

- John Locke

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.

- Marshall McLuhan

Privilege is the greatest enemy of right.

- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Because it's so easy to copy anything, a lot of people have convinced themselves that they shouldn't have to pay for it. Well, the reason you get paid is because the people who sit all day long at their desks creating books and songs and software have mortgages. And if you're only going to sell one copy of everything and then the world is going to make a gazillion pirated copies off of it, it's going to be really hard to pay your mortgage.

- Pat Schroeder

When people come to you for help, do not turn them off with pious words, saying, "Have faith and take your troubles to God." Act instead as though there were no God, as though there were only one person in the world who could help -- only yourself.

- Martin Buber

Reality is much more complex than any judgment of right and wrong encourages you to believe. When you really understand the ethical, spiritual, social, economic, and psychological forces that shape individuals, you will see that people's choices are not based on a desire to hurt. Instead, they are in accord with what they know and what world views are available to them. Most are doing the best they can, given what information they've received and what problems they are facing.

- Michael Lerner

The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

- Pema Chodron

What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "evil," and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?

- Sam Harris

Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.

- Madame de Stael

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. . . . Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

- Beatrix Potter

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

- Jane Addams

The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.

- Charlie Brower

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

- Margaret Mead

Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.

- Michael Korda

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

- Albert Einstein

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

- Henry David Thoreau

We need to build millions of little moments of caring on an individual level. Indeed, as talk of a politics of meaning becomes more widespread, many people will feel it easier to publicly acknowledge their own spiritual and ethical aspirations and will allow themselves to give more space to their highest vision in their personal interactions with others. A politics of meaning is as much about these millions of small acts as it is about any larger change. The two necessarily go hand in hand.

- Michael Lerner

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

- Albert Einstein

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.

- Linus Pauling

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it's based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.

- Martha Nussbaum