Ethics and Integrity Quotes
Top 50 Ethics and Integrity Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
Love your neighbour as yourself.
- Jesus (c6-c33 BC), founder of
Christianity.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-confucius.jpg)
Confucius 551–479 BC, the Chinese
philosopher , pictured right, puts it this way:
Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-augustine.jpg)
The philosopher, St
Augustine (354–430), pictured right, says:
Love the sinner but hate the sin.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-wedgwood.jpg)
The English pottery manufacturer, Josiah
Wedgwood (1730-95), pictured right, asked a question of love that became the Anti-Slavery
Society’s motto:
Am I not a man and a brother?
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-eliot.jpg)
Dorothea in George Eliot’s, pictured right, Middlemarch (1874) also comments:
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?
No 2![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-schweitzer.jpg)
Ethics...are nothing but reverence for life.
- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965),
German-born French missionary and theologian, pictured right. ![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotesstein.jpg)
Jim Casy in John Steinbeck’s, pictured right, book, The Grapes of Wrath (1939) puts it
another way:
All that lives is holy.
In the film Schindler’s
List the Jewish inscription on the ring given to Schindler by his workers says:
Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotessing.jpg)
Peter Singer (1946- ), the Australian
philosopher, pictured right, says we should also protect animals, because:
In suffering the animals are our equals.
No 3![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-bunyan.jpg)
Better, though difficult, the right way to go than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.
(Christian in the 1678 novel The Pilgrim's
Progress)
- John Bunyan (1628-88), pictured right, English writer.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-thoreau.jpg)
Henry David
Thoreau (1817-62), the American philosopher, pictured right,agrees
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
No 4![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-king-ml.jpg)
We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people but the
appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King (1929-68), American
civil rights leader,pictured right.
Other great thinkers agree:
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-gandhi.jpg)
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
- Mahatma (Mohandas)
Gandhi (1869–1948, pictured right, Indian leader.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-burke.jpg)
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund
Burke (1729-97), Irish-born British Member of Parliament, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-mill.jpg)
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction.
- John Stuart
Mill (1806-73), English philosopher, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-wiesel.jpg)
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the
tormented.
- Elie Wiesel (1928- ), Romanian-born American and Auschwitz survivor, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-voltaire.jpg)
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
- Voltaire (1698-1778), French
philosopher and writer, pictured right,.
No 5![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-augustine.jpg)
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues.
- St Augustine (354–430),
Algerian philosopher, pictured right.
But others think that courage, or valour, is more important:
Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point,
- C. S. Lewis 1898–1963, English writer, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
Valour is the chiefest virtue, and most dignifies the haver,
(Cominius in Corialanus)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), pictured right, English playwright, pictured right
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-wollstonecraft.jpg)
Mary
Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), the English pioneer of women’s rights, pictured right,values
independence:
Independence I have long considered the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue.
No 6
The end justifies the means.
- Hermann Busenbaum 1600–68, German theologian.![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-huxley.jpg)
The English writer, Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), pictured right, disagrees:
The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature
of the ends produced.
No 7![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-thomas-acquinas.jpg)
Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to
desire; and to know what he ought to do,
- St. Thomas
Aquinas (1225-74) Italian philosopher, pictured right,
He also gives two other ethical tips:
One cannot use an evil action with reference to a good intention.
Evil denotes the absence of good.
No 8
Hell has three gates, lust, anger and greed.
- Bhagavad Gita (the holy Hindu poem, the Son of God).
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-lao.jpg)
Conversely, Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC),
the Chinese philosopher, pictured right, highlights the three greatest virtues:
Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures
No 9![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-emerson.jpg)
Character is higher than intellect.
- Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-82), American philosopher, pictured right.
Two other philosophers comment:
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-paine.jpg)
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
- Thomas (Tom)
Paine (1737-1809), pictured right, English philosopher
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-heraclitus.jpg)
Character is destiny.
- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC), Greek
philosopher, pictured right,
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-goleman.jpg)
Daniel Goleman, pictured right, in Emotional Intelligence
(1996) also says:
The bedrock of character is self-discipline,
No 10![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-rousseau.jpg)
Conscience is the voice of the soul.
- Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (1712-78) Swiss philosopher, pictured right,
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-harper-lee.jpg)
Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s, pictured right, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) says:
The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-gaarder.jpg)
But Sophie in Sophie's World (by
Jostein Gaarder, the Norwegian writer, pictured right) warns:
Common sense and conscience can both be compared to a muscle. If you don’t use a muscle, it gets weaker and
weaker
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
Shakespeare's, pictured right,
Hamlet also comments:
Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
No 11![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
O – I ha’ [have] lost my reputation. I ha’ lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial,
(Cassio in Othello)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-branson.jpg)
British businessman, Richard Branson (1950-
), pictured right, agrees:
All you have in your life is your reputation.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-buffett.jpg)
The American investor, Warren
Buffett (1930- ), pictured right, makes two other comments:
If... nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank balance is, your life is a disaster.
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.
No 12![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-king-ml.jpg)
The time is always right to do what’s right.
- Martin Luther
King (1929-68), pictured right, American civil rights leader.
No 13![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-james.jpg)
Sow an action and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a
character, and you reap a destiny.
- William
James (1842-1910), American psychologist and philosopher (pictured right).
No 14![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-russell.jpg)
We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practise, and another which
we practise but seldom preach.
- Bertrand
Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-guest.jpg)
The American writer, Edgar A. Guest (1881–1959), pictured right, also comments:
The best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds.
No 15![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
(the Duke in Measure for
Measure)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right
Four other philosophers also comment:
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-voltaire.jpg)
Under coercion there is no virtue.
- Voltaire (1698-1778), the
French philosopher (pictured right).
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-augustine.jpg)
Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
- St.
Augustine (354-430), Algerian philosopher (pictured right).
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-aristotle.jpg)
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured
right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-bacon.jpg)
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover
virtue.
- Francis
Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and politician, pictured right.
No 16![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-twain.jpg)
Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right,
(Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn)
- Mark Twain (1835-1910), pictured right, American writer.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-kant.jpg)
Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804), the German philosopher (pictured right), agrees:
The death of dogma is the birth of
morality,
No 17
A man who gives charity in secret is greater than Moses.
- the Talmud, Jewish holy book
No 18![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-cicero.jpg)
Ability without honour is useless.
- Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman philosopher and politician,
pictured right,
No 19![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-confucius.jpg)
To see the right and not do it is cowardice.
- Confucius (551-479 BC) Chinese
philosopher, pictured right.
No 20![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-lincoln.jpg)
There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.
- Abraham Lincoln
(1809-65), American president, pictured right,
Three of Shakespeare's, pictured right, characters agree:![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men observingly distil it out.
(Henry V in Henry V)
There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
(Bassanio in The Merchant of
Venice)
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometimes by action dignified.
(Friar Laurence in Romeo and
Juliet).
No 21![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-king-ml.jpg)
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King (1929-68), American
civil rights leader, pictured right,
No 22![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-fromm.jpg)
Our moral problem is man’s indifference to himself.
- Erich Fromm (1900–80), American
philosopher and psychologist, pictured right.
No 23![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-milton.jpg)
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
(from the 1634 poem Camus, A Mask (1634)
- John Milton (1608-74), pictured right above, English poet.
No 24![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-blake.jpg)
A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent,
(from his 1863 poem, Auguries of Innocence)
- William Blake (1757-1827), pictured right, English writer.
No 25![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-eliot-ts.jpg)
The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
(from the 1935 play, Murder in the Cathedral)
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), pictured right, American writer and poet.
No 26![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-milton.jpg)
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone,
(from the 1667 poem Paradise Lost)
- John Milton (1608-74), pictured right, English poet.
No 27![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-nietzsche.jpg)
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
- Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, pictured right.
No 28![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-mozart.jpg)
It’s the heart that ennobles a man.
- Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart (1756-91), Austrian composer, pictured right,
No 29![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-rand.jpg)
In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
(John Galt in the 1957 novel Atlas
Shrugged)
- Ayn Rand (1905-82), pictured right, American writer.
No 30![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-stewart-smith.jpg)
I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules, if behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of
ordinary, everyday human kindness – and a little looking out for the other fella, too.
- Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) in the film, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, pictured
right.
No 31![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-pascal.jpg)
All our dignity consists in thought. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of
morality.
- Blaise Pascal (1623-62),
French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, pictured right.
This is reflected in another of Pascal's comments:
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
No 32![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so
- Hamlet in Shakespeare's,
pictured right, Hamlet
No 33
Live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything
bad,
Erich Fromm (1900-80), the American philosopher and
psychologist, pictured right.
No 34![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-rowling.jpg)
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
(Dumbledore in Chamber Of Secrets)
- J.K. Rowling (1965- ), English
writer, pictured right.
No 35![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-bunyan.jpg)
One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.
- John Bunyan (1628-88), English writer, pictured right (from the 1684 novel
The Pilgrim's Progress)
No 36![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?,
(Iago in Othello)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.
No 37![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-pope.jpg)
To err is human; to forgive divine.
- Alexander Pope 1688–1744, English poet, pictured right.
No 38![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-voltaire.jpg)
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
- Voltaire (1698-1778),French
philosopher and writer, pictured right.
No 39![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shaw.jpg)
Colonel Pickering: Have you no morals, man?
Alfred Doolittle: Can't afford them, Governor.
(from the 1912 play Pygmalion)
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), pictured right above, Irish playwright.
No 40![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-eisenhower.jpg)
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) Second
World War leader and American president, pictured right
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-cadbury-george.jpg)
The English chocolate maker, George Cadbury (1839-1922), pictured right, also
comments:
What is the good of having principles, unless you
are prepared to suffer for them?
No 41 ![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-roosevelt-ted.jpg)
We have duties to others and duties to ourselves;
and we can shirk neither.
- Theodore
Roosevelt (1858-1919), American president, pictured right.
No 42![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-lincoln.jpg)
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by
avoiding it today.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), pictured right, American
president.
No 43![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-thomas-kempis.jpg)
Of the two evils the lesser is always to be chosen.
- Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471), German philosopher, pictured right.
No 44![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-kant.jpg)
Live your life as though every act were to become a universal law (the categorical imperative).
- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
German philosopher, pictured right.
No 45![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-socrates.jpg)
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
- Socrates (470-399 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured
right.
No 46![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-spinoza.jpg)
A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.
- Benedict (or Baruch)
Spinoza (1632-77), Dutch philosopher, pictured right.
No 47![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-schweitzer.jpg)
A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint,
- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965),
German philosopher and doctor, pictured right.
No 48![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-simpson-homer.jpg)
It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.
- Homer Simpson, American cartoon
character, pictured right.
No 49![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
To do a great right, do a little wrong,
(Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.
The Duke of Venice in Shakespeare's Othello also comments:
The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.
No 50![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotesbank.jpg)
I'm as pure as the driven slush.
- Tallulah Bankhead (1902-68),
American actress, pictured right.
![Ethics and Integrity Quotes Ethics and Integrity Quotes](images/quotes-west.jpg)
In the 1933 film I'm No Angel the American
actress, Mae West (1892-1980), pictured right, also had these two great
lines:
When I'm good, I'm very, very good, but when I'm
bad, I'm better.
Between two evils, I always pick the one I've never
tried before.
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