144 Legal Ethics Quotes

Following is our list of legal ethics quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about business ethics.

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Famous Legal Ethics Quotes

Ethics is the new competitive environment — Peter Robinson

Law is not a trade, not briefs, not merchandise, and so the heaven of commercial competition should not vulgarize the legal profession. — V. R. Krishna Iyer

We educated, privileged lawyers have a professional and moral duty to represent the underrepresented in our society, to ensure that justice exists for all, both legal and economic justice. — Sonia Sotomayor

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

The right to be able to speak openly and confidentially to another is, at times, codified legally if not ethically. — Gad Saad

Your lawyer is your true mercenary. Under his code honor consists in making the best possible fight in exchange for the biggest possible fee. He is frankly for sale to the highest bidder. — David Graham Phillips

Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished. — Jeremy Bentham

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. — Immanuel Kant

The gladsome light of jurisprudence. — Edward Coke

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

The good lawyer knows the law, the clever one knows the judge. — American Proverbs

A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client. — English Proverbs

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. — Bertrand Russell

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people. — Sayings

A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a "brief." — Franz Kafka

Ethical 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

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

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

Legal ethics quote You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.
You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.

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

Do the right thing because it is right. - Immanuel Kant

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

Legal ethics quote Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

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

How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne

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

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Business Ethics Quotes

If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. — Potter Stewart

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

Legal ethics quote Advertising is legalized lying.
Advertising is legalized lying.

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

There is no such thing as business ethics. There is only one kind -- you have to adhere to the highest standards. — Marvin Bower

Play fair, be prepared for others to play dirty, and don't let them drag you into the mud. — Richard Branson

Legal ethics quote Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.
Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities. — Josiah Stamp

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

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

Legal ethics quote In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.
In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes that he who distrusts them. — Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour

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

Our distrust is very expensive. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ethical Questions Quotes

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 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

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

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

Lawyer Professionalism Quotes

While I have served in public office for 30 years, my professional training is as a pharmacist, not a lawyer or an accountant. — George Ryan

I began wearing hats as a young lawyer because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee. — Bella Abzug

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers. — Camille Paglia

I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals. — Gerard Butler

Our record number of teenagers must become our record number of high school and college graduates and our record number of teachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, and skilled professionals. — Ruben Hinojosa

The doctor gets you when you're born, The preacher, when you marry, And the lawyer lurks with costly clerks If too much on you carry. Professional men, they have no cares; Whatever happens, they get theirs. — Ogden Nash

I began wearing hats as a young lawyer because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee... — Bella Abzug

There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft. — Cass Sunstein

What's quote-unquote a 'good' lawyer, doctor, or whatever the profession is. And if you're a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image. — Sonia Sotomayor

Our home had many books due principally to the educational interests of my sister and two brothers, all of whom where serious students engaged in professional studies; my sister became a doctor of medicine and my brothers became lawyers. — Frederick Reines

Being Ethical Quotes

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

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. — Thomas A. Edison

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

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

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

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

I think 'vegan' is a beautiful word. It is more than just a description for our diet. I see it as a visible template for an ethical, healthy, responsible, and rational life. Because it describes our character, it says we do not take the life of another living being to satisfy our wants. — Philip Wollen

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 Behavior Quotes

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

The way he eats is the way he works. — Polish Proverbs

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

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

Mass communication communicates massively: its language lacks precise articulation and avoids demanding terms; it argues for the kind of behavior in life which will make a "good program": ethic equals showbiz. — Frederic Raphael

If networks are to be more efficient...this will come about only on the basis of a high level of trust and the existence of shared norms of ethical behavior between network members — Francis Fukuyama

Ethical Conduct Quotes

I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives. A disastrous by-product of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. We are guilty. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits. — Albert Einstein

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. — William Lloyd Garrison

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. — Dee Hock

The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide. — Alexander Maclaren

We have been quick to assume rights to use water but slow to recognize obligations to preserve and protect it... In short, we need a water ethic-a guide to right conduct in the face of complex decisions about natural systems we do not and cannot fully understand. — Sandra Postel

By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe. — Albert Schweitzer

Ethical conduct is something that becomes inherent in an organization over a long period of time. — Lee R. Raymond

A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct — Aldo Leopold

I have been committed to carrying out my duties... in accordance with both the letter and spirit of all applicable rules of ethics and canons of conduct. — Samuel Alito

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct. — Carl Sandburg

Ethical Standards Quotes

It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated. — Grigori Perelman

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

You cannot choose your battlefield, The Gods do that for you; But you can plant a standard Where a standard never flew. — Nathalia Crane

There are no "standards of Right". Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its own orbit. To hell with "moral principle"; there is no such thing. — Aleister Crowley

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

But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence. — Price Pritchett

Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena. — H. Jay Dinshah

I ask that all Americans demonstrate in their personal and public lives... the high ethical standards that are essential to good character and to the continued success of our Nation. — William J. Clinton

A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people. — B. R. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Excellence calls for character . . . integrity . . . fairness . . . honesty . . . a determination to do what's right. High ethical standards, across the board. — Price Pritchett

People Writing About Legal Ethics

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More Legal Ethics Quotes

The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government. - Tacitus quote

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

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

When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists. — Craig Reucassel

America with 4% of the world's population has 50% of the worlds lawyers .... tort lawyers love to point out that 1% of America's health care cost is used to pay malpractice insurance ... but most doctors practice defensive medicine to avoid malpractice litigation ... these costs are not included in the 1% number above. — Richard Lamm

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

Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes. — Desiderius Erasmus

I do not want you ever to initiate any action for any refunds of taxes without first consulting me and presenting the matter fully to me so that I may judge whether it is an honorable and ethical action to take, not simply legally, but according to my own personal standards. — Ernest Hemingway

I see ethical considerations as having a certain priority in our interactions - passing judgment on our political and legal processes. — John Kleinig

In separating out, say, legal and moral requirements, I tend to work with paradigms rather than strict divisions - eg, paradigmatically, legal requirements are jurisdictionally bound whereas ethical requirements are aspirationally universal; ethical requirements focus especially on intentions whereas legal requirements focus primarily on conduct; ethical requirements take priority over legal requirements; and so on. — John Kleinig

Ethical globalization is possible if only we can hold governments and business accountable for respecting human rights, not just in the traditional political and legal realms, but in everything - health, education and the other social determinants of health - rights to food, safe water, sanitation and so on. — Mary Robinson

Some of our earliest codes of ethics in the so-called Western World are little more than a rewriting of the Ten Commandments. Eastern legal constructions likewise arise out of the earliest spiritual traditions and understandings. — Neale Donald Walsch

I'm working on different fields. One of my next books Insha'Allah will be a novel because it's important to explore the heart and imagination, the spiritual side. I've been working for twenty five years in the legal field and now I'm reaching what I want, which is an Islamic applied ethics and I'm also dealing with Muslims in the West. — Tariq Ramadan

Rule 1: All rules can be broken. Many (ex-legal and ethical) should be. Most people won't. — Marc Andreessen

Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy. — John Ralston Saul

Belief in one god, praying, charity, the five pillars, ethical moral objectives and messages in the Koran, the history of Islam. There are basic tenants in Islam that we universally believe in but I think it's very naive to think that Sharia, that legal rulings are derived in a vacuum, that people do not bring their own histories and politics and social pledges to bear when they interpret the Koran. — Mark Durie

[There are, in us] possibilities that take our breath away, and show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can imagine. Here is a world in which all is well, in spite of certain forms of death, death of hope, death of strength, death of responsibility, of fear and wrong, death of everything that paganism, naturalism and legalism pin their trust on. — William James

Weight loss programs and health clubs have an ethical and legal obligation to adequately disclose details about program costs before customers sign a contract. They should also clearly explain how the program works and what is expected so that consumers can make an informed choice whether to join. — Bill Vaughan

It is the teaching of the Bible and of sound Political ethics that the education of children belongs to the sphere of the family and is the duty of the parents. The theory that the children of the Commonwealth are the charge of the Commonwealth is a pagan one, derived from heathen Sparta and Platoís heathen republic, and connected by regular, logical sequence with legalized prostitution and the dissolution of the conjugal tie. — Robert Dabney

They don't produce anything. All they do is guide you through the labyrinth of the legal system that they created - and they keep changing it just in case you start to catch on. — Ian Shoales

A minimal level of sportsman ethics afield is mandated by written law. Beyond that, say, when an action is legal but ethically questionable, or when (as Aldo Leopold long ago pointed out) no one is watching, hunter ethics is an individual responsibility. As the existentialists would have it, we determine our own honor minute by minute, action by action, one decision at a time. — David Petersen

Just because something happens to be legal does not make it moral, ethical or right. Abortion is perhaps one of the most dramatic examples of a situation where something is legal, but is very much a sin against God. — Al Barry

The number one reason most people don't get what they want is that they don't know what they want. Rich people are totally clear that they want wealth. They are unwavering in their desire. They are fully committed to creating wealth. As long as it's legal, moral, and ethical, they will do whatever it takes to have wealth. Rich people do not send mixed messages to the universe. Poor people do. — T. Harv Eker

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