There is no such thing as business ethics. There is only one kind -- you have to adhere to the highest standards. — Marvin Bower
If being ethical were profitable everybody would do it. — Naval Ravikant
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. — Bertrand Russell
Medical ethics is a fascinating discipline, as it deals with issues replete with complex philosophical, moral, and ethical considerations that are rarely black or white. — Gad Saad
Corporate Social Responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it because it is good for our business — Niall FitzGerald
The business of business should not be about money. It should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed — Anita Roddick
Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment. — Amartya Sen
Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching- even when doing the wrong thing is legal. — Aldo Leopold
All business depends upon men fulfilling their responsibilities. — Mahatma Gandhi
More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency. — Peter Singer
Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers — Kiran Bedi
Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. — Potter Stewart
Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships. — H. Ross Perot
Short Business Ethics Quotes
History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. — B. R. Ambedkar
Who you do business with is just as important as what you choose to do. — Naval Ravikant
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce
It's good to stand for something, to believe in something and base your business on values. — Jerry Greenfield
I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man. — Thomas Jefferson
Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing — Henry Mintzberg
Morality and ethics automatically emerge when we realize the long term consequences of our actions. — Naval Ravikant
Knowledge, profits, dividends, valuation, conduct of business, resolve — Howard Marks
You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.
Good Ethics Quotes
Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Kindness is not a business. True kindness expects nothing in return and should never act with conditions.
And the next morning at whatever time he’d decided, he’d awaken to find me standing outside his door. No matter what had happened the night before – good game, bad game, soreness, fatigue – he was up working out every morning while most of the other guys slept. — Tim Grover
In walking through the world there is a choice for a man to make. He can choose the fair and open path, the path which sound ethics, sound democracy, and the common law prescribe, or choose the secret way by which he can get the better of his fellow man. — Ida Tarbell
Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
Dreams do come true, but not without the help of others, a good education, a strong work ethic, and the courage to lean in. — Ursula Burns
The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capacity or good fortune to be a privileged individual in society, you have a moral responsibility to society. — Aga Khan IV
What I need to do is have a great positive attitude and a great work ethic. Those two things validate me. Yes, it's important that I have good numbers, and I'm well-respected as a player. But I think it's more important that I'm respected as a man. — David Robinson
Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways. — Franz Boas
Work Ethics Quotes
Live by the creed that a strong work ethic, playing by the rules, and doing things the right way will bring about opportunities for success and, ultimately, happiness. — Nick Saban
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement. — Alfred Adler
People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.
I heard Russell Simmons say that, 'people have million dollar dreams with a minimum wage work ethic.' Basically, everybody wanna be rich but don't nobody wanna work for it. — Yo Gotti
Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers. — Magic Johnson
For me the starting point for everything - before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience - is work ethic. Without one of significant magnitude, you're dead in the water. — Bill Walsh
Instead of complaining about your circumstances, get busy and create some new ones.
People have lost their faith that if they work hard, if they try to get ahead, if they play by the rules, then that will ultimately result in positive outcomes. — James David Vance
From my parents, I learned a very strong work ethic, and all of my brothers and sisters all worked from the earliest days of life right through to the present time. — George J. Mitchell
Everyone has a great idea but only a few have great work ethic. — Patrick Bet-David
Legal Ethics Quotes
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government. — Tacitus
Considering the absence of legal coercion, the surprising thing is that men have for so long, and, on the whole, so reliably, adhered to what we might call the breadwinner ethic. — Barbara Ehrenreich
The right to be able to speak openly and confidentially to another is, at times, codified legally if not ethically. — Gad Saad
Love your parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.
Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right. Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right. — Marian Wright Edelman
A corporation like Enron is a person with a legal identity and no ethical accountability. — Doug Berry
I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions. — Sidney Poitier
Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat the well enough so they don't want to.
When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists. — Craig Reucassel
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. — Cliff Stearns
My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Within legal enforcement of "morality," there is no sense of how to morally, ethically, or fairly help people live safer lives. It's all about banishment or punishment or forced destitution - all of which creates more desperation, and more social risk-taking by people in moments of crisis. — Terre Thaemlitz
Ethical Behavior Quotes
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. — John F. Kennedy
Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain. — Robert K. Greenleaf
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
My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.
It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly. — Margaret Mead
But you cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It's the fence that keeps out the goats that will eat all the young shoots in your garden. — Jon Kabat-Zinn
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
Don't make misrepresentations to anyone you deal with. If you believe the other person may have misunderstood you, correct any misunderstanding you find exists. Honesty is integral to ethical behavior, and trustworthiness is essential for good, lasting relationships. — Buck Rodgers
Ethical and responsible behavior needs to become the cornerstone of corporate behavior — Manmohan Singh
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative. — Jean Cocteau
A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic. — E. O. Wilson
Being Ethical Quotes
Apart from values and ethics which I have tried to live by, the legacy I would like to leave behind is a very simple one - that I have always stood up for what I consider to be the right thing, and I have tried to be as fair and equitable as I could be. — Ratan Tata
My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference. — Harry S. Truman
How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne
Either get busy living or get busy dying.
Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better place?" It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it better?" To that there is an answer. — Leo Buscaglia
We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. — Bryan Stevenson
More people would learn from their mistakes if they were not so busy denying them.
American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. — Edward R. Murrow
Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained. — W. H. Auden
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. — Albert Schweitzer
Ethical Questions Quotes
We live in a time when complex ethical questions are easily subordinated to the demands of efficiency, profit maximization, and maintenance or furthering of political power. — Randal Marlin
What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency which suggests that even the question Have we anything to eat? will be answered not in material but in ethical terms. — Hugo Ball
The private sector can go forward, if it must, with destruction of embryos for questionable and ethically challenged science. But spend the people's money on proven blood cord, bone marrow, germ cell, and adult cell research. — Roger Wicker
A civilized society must count animals as worthy of moral consideration and ethical treatment. The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
Many business leaders are asking fundamental questions about what business they're in, why they are doing it and how it can be used as a means of healing human and natural communities. — Amory Lovins
I find this in all these places I've been travelling - from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil - there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with a kind of absence of discussion of questions of justice and ethics and of values. — Michael Sandel
As a leader, these attributes - confidence, perseverance, work ethic and good sense - are all things I look for in people. I also try to lead by example and create an environment where good questions and good ideas can come from anyone. — Heather Bresch
The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? — Dave Barry
The question is where are business ethics and morality if one of the parties wants to dishonor a binding contract, just because in retrospect it realizes it could perhaps have got a better price! — Anil Ambani
Responsible Business Quotes
Businesses owned by responsible and organized merchants shall eventually surpass those owned by wealthy rulers. — Ibn Khaldun
I always thought, 'Will I go into the business, or will I not go into the business?' But when my father got arrested, I really didn't have a choice. I was the oldest son, and it was something that had to be done. — Jared Kushner
It doesn't matter if you are a musician, a business leader, a president or a student. We all have a responsibility to give back. — Shakira
The advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts everyone under intense stress — Irving Janis
Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business. — Yvon Chouinard
Success is not necessarily about connections, or cutting corners, or chamba - the three Cs of bad business. Call it trite, but believe me: success can be achieved through hard work, frugality, integrity, responsiveness to change, and most of all, boldness to dream. — John Gokongwei
Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens. — Charles Derber
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities. — Josiah Stamp
There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud. — Milton Friedman
I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business. — Eugene H. Peterson
Unethical Quotes
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and unethical. — Amartya Sen
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. — Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation. — Dianne Feinstein
While that amendment failed, human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner. — Mike Pence
Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization. — Daniel H. Pink
Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. — Vladimir Nabokov
There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. — Kurt Huber
I consider your conduct unethical and lousy. — Peter Arno
In the year since we brought things into the open with a clean breath of fresh air at City Hall, we have learned about corrupt spending practices and unethical conflicts of interest that waste your money... and keep Dallas from being the great city of our dreams. — Laura Miller
I think "immoral" is probably the wrong word to use...I prefer the word "unethical." — Ivan Boesky
Ethical Quotes
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant
No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. — Aneurin Bevan
Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are. — Saint Augustine
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. — Rachel Carson
Solidarity is based on the principle that we are willing to put ourselves at risk to protect each other. — Starhawk
Ethical teaching is weakened if it is tied up with dogmas that will not bear examination. — Margaret E. Knight
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. — Jeremy Bentham
It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated. — Grigori Perelman
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems. — Reinhold Niebuhr
Ethical Issues Quotes
The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture. — Gaylord Nelson
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago. — Ezekiel Emanuel
There’s policy issues like facial recognition and how to treat images of people that we need to address and work through. We need to figure out, like, where the sort of danger zones are — where the red lines are — and then clarify that over time. — Greg Brockman
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don't think it's an ethical or moral issue, or even that people are stupid, but I do feel like as a culture things are out of balance, perverted, and inverted. Things that are ridiculous are worshipped, and things that are important are ridiculed. I think that's something worth thinking about. — Ian MacKaye
I was aware of what animals go through because I had driven animals to slaughter and I'd killed animals. And I was aware that there were certain ethical issues, but they weren't preying on my mind very heavily. — Neal Barnard
Today, unfortunately, the right to vote seems to have become a partisan issue. Democrats seek to guarantee and expand voting rights. Republicans try to undermine and suppress voting rights. — Donna Brazile
There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior. — Derek Bok
Play fair, be prepared for others to play dirty, and don't let them drag you into the mud. — Richard Branson
But I would argue that the best businesses are the ones that are for-profit, sustainable and ethical so you can attract the best people. — Naval Ravikant
Equal interchange of goods and service between buyer and seller is the keynote of tomorrow's business world when the vision of the modern business man awakens him to the wisdom of writing that policy into his code of ethics. — Walter Russell
He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency. — Lee R. Raymond
You cannot choose your battlefield,
The Gods do that for you;
But you can plant a standard
Where a standard never flew. — Nathalia Crane
To be an ethical leader is indeed to be different. This kind of leader acknowledges the complexity of running a responsible business, yet tries to do it anyway. — Andrew Leigh
We have to shift our emphasis from economic efficiency and materialism towards a sustainable quality of life and to healing of our society, of our people and our ecological systems. — Janet Holmes a Court
To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical. Canonise 'business success,' and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes! — Ida Tarbell
When the nazis came to power, I looked to the universities that prided themselves upon their intellectual freedom, and they failed me. I looked to the German press, which prided itself on the freedom of the press, and it failed me. Until at last the churches stood alone, and that for which I once had little regard earned my respect. — Albert Einstein
Relativity applies to physics, not ethics. — Albert Einstein
As Ive progressed in my career, Ive come to appreciate -- and really value -- the other attributes that define a companys success beyond the P&L: great leadership, long-term financial strength, ethical business practices, evolving business strategies, sound governance, powerful brands, values-based decision-making. — Ursula Burns
In the ethical sense, propaganda bears the same relation to education as to business or politics. It may be abused. It may be used to over-advertise an institution and to create in the public mind artificial values. There can be no absolute guarantee against its misuse. — Edward Bernays
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. — Steve Jobs
Living up to your commitments is part of business ethics. My word is my bond. — Isadore Sharp
It horrifies me that ethics is only an optional extra at Harvard Business School. — Sir John Harvey
Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics and that there are no easy shortcuts to success. Their companies need ethics carefully sewn into their fabric. — Vivek Wadhwa
It horrifies me that ethics is only an optional extra at Harvard Business School. — John Harvey-Jones
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. — Henry Kravis
A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here. — Seth Godin
A business is seldom if ever built up except on lines of strictest integrity. — Andrew Carnegie
He [Donald Trump] is got no ethics when it comes to business and can they turn this story line, talk to his white working class base and say, he`s hired illegal immigrants. He doesn`t look out for you. He`s taking your kids money at Trump University and he is being accused of fraud. — Joan Walsh Anglund
There's no such thing as business ethics; there's just ethics. And ethics makes no concessions for the real or imagined necessities of making a profit. — Michael Josephson
Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work! — Robin Williams
If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man. — Stephen Covey
The market has no morality — Michael Heseltine
Football, that's just athletics. But in the business world - doing everything - people are competing. So you need good work ethics, and I think it helped me to develop good work ethics, being in a small town. — Herschel Walker
Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace. — Aristotle
The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy. — Paul Hawken
Why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel anyway? Social media touches every facet of business and is more an extension of good business ethics. — Erik Qualman
America's highest economic need is higher ethical standards -- enforced by strict laws and upheld by responsible business leaders. — George W. Bush
Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values. — Peter Singer
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
Doing good business - being ethical, being transparent, being caring, implementing values in your business - makes a difference, and you make money at the same time. — Shari Arison
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