Quotes on Ethical

The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.

The meaning that we are seeking in evolution is its meaning to us, to man. The ethics of evolution must be human ethics. It is one of the many unique qualities of man, the new sort of animal, that he is the only ethical animal. The ethical need and its fulfillment are also products of evolution, but they have been produced in man alone.

Ethical existence [is] the highest manifestation of spirituality.

Religious belief is not a precondition either of ethical conduct or of happiness.

The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

Ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.

The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.

A lot of people think big business in America is a bad thing. I think it's a really good thing. Most people in business are ethical, hard-working, good people. And it's a meritocracy.

Were we incapable of empathy – of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own – then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent.

Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal.

The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to serve others as much as possible.

All education is the art of making men ethical (sittlich), of transforming the old Adam into the new Adam.

There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. This would nevertheless require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders.