There’s strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

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.

Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner’s medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it’s three-Michelin’s stars, there’s no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

You’re morally tainted if you don’t treat both the accuser and the accused with fairness and with respect, and with due process.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

Facebook is uniquely positioned to answer questions that people have, like, what sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York lately and liked? These are queries you could potentially do with Facebook that you couldn’t do with anything else, we just have to do it.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

There is nothing good or evil save in the will.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

I do not pilfer victory.

I can hardly eat meat because it has to look like something what it was not when it was alive.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue?

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

Ethics and power are separate.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

I had not expected ‚A Brief History of Time‘ to be a best seller.

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that ‚Oryx and Crake‘ is anti-science. Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses. And it can be bought and sold, and it often is. But it is not in itself bad. Like electricity, it’s neutral.

States should have the right to enact laws… particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.