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Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards.
Ted Koppel
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote encourages individuals to uphold high moral standards and practice civility, even amidst failures.

Ted Koppel emphasizes the importance of maintaining a standard of decency and ethical behavior in life. He acknowledges that while we may fail to live up to these standards at times, the solution is to adjust our actions rather than compromise our moral values. This message encourages a commitment to civility and integrity in our interactions with others.

Themes

DecencyCivilityMoralityEthical BehaviorStandards

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a speech about the importance of ethics in the workplace.

More from Ted Koppel

Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation.
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Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach.
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My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you.
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Set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed.
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You can almost measure where you are in life by the degree to which you have begun looking back rather than ahead.
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People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.
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