Ethics Quotes

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• The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals. Strength enters just as much as the moral element prevails.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Ethics

• In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.

  Thomas Erskine

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Ethics, Gratitude, Govern, Grace

• But we must not forget… this ritual expressed… certain ideas which lie at the very root of true religion, the fellowship of the worshippers with one another in their fellowship with the deity, and the consecration of the bonds of kinship as the type of all right ethical relations between man and man.

  William Robertson Smith

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Ethics

• Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed.

  Karen Armstrong

  Topics in Religion

  Tags in Ethics

• 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

  Topics in Inspirational, Power, Religion

  Tags in Good, Ethics, Faith

• 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

  Topics in Politics, Service

  Tags in Human Rights, Compassion, Ethics, Responsibility, Duty, Community

• How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

  Barry Lopez

  Topics in Confusion, Life

  Tags in Ethics, Responsibility, Duty, Evil, Questions, Maturity, Choice, Choosing

• Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible.

  Lillian Florence Hellman

  Topics in Belief, Religion

  Tags in Integrity/Individuality, Ethics, Responsibility, Faith

• A Humanist Code of Ethics:

  Do no harm to the earth, she is your mother.

  Being is more important than having.

  Never promote yourself at another’s expense.

  Hold life sacred; treat it with reverence.

  Allow each person the digity of his or her labor.

  Open your home to the wayfarer.

  Be ready to receive your deepest dreams;

  sometimes they are the speech of unblighted conscience.

  Always make restitutions to the ones you have harmed.

  Never think less of yourself than you are.

  Never think that you are more than another.

  Arthur Dobrin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ethics, Reverence, Humanism, Credo, Creed

• Ethics cannot be based upon our obligations toward [people], but they are complete and natural only when we feel this Reverence for Life and the desire to have compassion for and to help all creatures insofar as it is in our power. I think that this ethic will become more and more recognized because of its great naturalness and because it is the foundation of a true humanism toward which we must strive if our culture is to become truly ethical.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Ethics, Humanism, Duty

• Thought cannot avoid the ethical or reverence and love for all life. It will abandon the old confined systems of ethics and be forced to recognize the ethics that knows no bounds. But on the other hand, those who believe in love for all creation must realize clearly the difficulties involved in the problem of a boundless ethic and must be resolved not to veil from [humankind] the conflicts which this ethic will involve [us], but allow [us] really to experience them. To think out in every implication the ethic of love for all creation — this is the difficult task which confronts our age.”

  Albert Schweitzer

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Ethics

• Instead of a bottom-line based on money and power, we need a new bottom-line that defines productivity and creativity as where corporations, governments, schools, public institutions, and social practices are judged as efficient, rational and productive not only to the extent they maximize money and power, but to the extent they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and our capacities to respond with awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation.

  Michael Lerner

  Topics in Love, Money, Power

  Tags in Ethics, Compassion, Earth, Creativity

• A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. 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

  Tags in Ethics, Salvation

• Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts.

  Heinz Pagels

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Conflict, Ethics, School

• 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

  Topics in Progress

  Tags in Ethics, School

• That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.

  William J. H. Boetcker

  Topics in Self Respect

  Tags in Ethics

• Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Progress, Religion, Service

  Tags in Ethics

• Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Topics in Love, Religion, Service

  Tags in Ethics, Humility, Reason

• A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Ethics

• To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one’s own, is ever the beginning of one’s real ethical development.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Ethics, Problem Solving, Compassion