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Business Ethics Quotes

 

Top 40 Business Ethics Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Business Ethics Quotes

The superior man understands righteousness; the inferior man understands profit.

- Confucius (551–479 BC) Chinese philosopher, pictured right

 

 

No 2

What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?,

- Jesus (c4 BC-c30 AD), founder of Christianity.

 

 

No 3Business Ethics Quotes

Try not to become a man of success but try to become a man of value.

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist (pictured right)

 

 

No 4

Better a little with righteousness than great revenues without right

(Book of Proverbs 16:8)

- the Bible.

 

 

No 5Business Ethics Quotes

What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do.

- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), pictured right, German doctor, missionary and philosopher

 

 

No 6Business Ethics Quotes

Policy sits above conscience.

(First Stranger in Timon of Athens)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

Gratiano also says in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice :

You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care.

 

 

No 7Business Ethics Quotes

Greed is all right…Greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.

- Ivan F. Boesky (1937- ), American businessman, pictured right

 Business Ethics Quotes

Gordon Gekko (in the film Wall Street, pictured right) said something similar:

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.

 

 

 No 8Business Ethics Quotes

It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, pictured right) in the film Wall Street (1987) ,pictured right

 

 

No 9Business Ethics Quotes

The business of business should not just be about money, it should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed.

- Anita Roddick (1942- 2007), founder of the Body Shop, the British cosmetics chain, pictured right.

 

 

Business Ethics Quotes

No 10

Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.

- Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English economist, pictured right

 

 

No 11Business Ethics Quotes

The company must not throw away money on huge bonuses for executives or other frivolities but must share its fate with the workers.

- Akio Morita (1921-1999), co-founder of Sony, pictured right.

 

 

No 12Business Ethics Quotes

To be good in business is to be a good human being.

- Robert Solomon, pictured right, in Ethics and Excellence (1992)

 

 

No 13Business Ethics Quotes

Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like.

- Edward, Lord Thurlow (1731–1806) English lawyer and politician, pictured right

 Business Ethics Quotes

J. K. Galbraith (1908-2006), pictured right, said something similar in The New Industrial State (1967):

Individuals have souls; corporations are notably soulless.

 

 

No 14Business Ethics Quotes

Profits must come through public confidence, and public confidence is given to any merchant in proportion to the service which he gives to the public.

- J.C. Penney (1875-1971), co-founder of the American department store, J.C. Penney, pictured right.

 

Business Ethics Quotes

 

 

No 15

If we have to cheat to win then we’d better think twice about what we’re doing.Business Ethics Quotes

- Kenneth Blanchard (pictured right above) and Norman Vincent Peale  (pictured right), The Power of Ethical Management (1988).

 

 

No 16Business Ethics Quotes

I believe in God, family and McDonald’s, and in the office that order is reversed.

- Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald’s), pictured right.

 

 

No 17Business Ethics Quotes

Ethics in business (or anywhere else) starts with a person.

- Bob Greenleaf (American management writer), pictured right.

 

 

No 18Business Ethics Quotes

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

(Mariana in All’s Well That Ends Well).

 - William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

 

No 19Business Ethics Quotes

Organizations, like men, if they are to command respect and grow, must have a sense of honour and must fulfil their promises.

- Mahatma ( Mohandas) Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian leader and philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 20Business Ethics Quotes

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

- John Maynard Keynes (1889-1945), English economist (pictured right). 

 

 

No 21Business Ethics Quotes

There never was, never has been, never will be, room for the ruthless exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few.

- Harry S. Truman, American president 1945-53 (pictured right).
 

 

No 22Business Ethics Quotes

I’ve got just as much conscience as any man in business can afford to keep.

(Mr. Haley, the slave trader, in Uncle Tom's Cabin)

- Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96), American writer, pictured right

 

 

No 23Business Ethiics Quotes

Capitalism was doomed ethically before it was doomed economically, a long time ago.

(from Cancer Ward, 1968)

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Russian writer, pictured right.

 

 

No 24Business Ethics Quotes

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

(the Duke in Measure for Measure)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

 

No 25Business Ethics Quotes

Man above all institutions!

- William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79), American abolitionist (pictured right)

 

 

No 26Business Ethics Quotes

Dulled conscience, irresponsibility and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster!

- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), American president 1933-45 (pictured right).

 

 

No 27Business Ethics Quotes

We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor a government.

 - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), pictured right, German doctor, missionary and philosopher

 

 

No 28Business Ethics Quotes

Do other men for they would do you. That’s the true business precept

(Jonas Chuzzlewit in Martin Chuzzlewit).

- Charles Dickens (1812–70), English novelist, pictured right

 

 

No 29Business Ethics Quotes

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails

- Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74), Irish poet, pictured right (from his 1764 poem, The Traveller)

 

 

No 30Business Ethics Quotes

The great development of industrialism means there must be an increase in the supervision exercised by the Government over business enterprise.

- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), American president 1901-9 (pictured right).

 

 

No 31 Business Ethics Quotes

Avarice, the spur of industry.

- David Hume (pictured right), Scottish philosopher, in his essay, Of Civil Liberty (1742)

 

 

No 32Business Ethics Quotes

We have a mantra: don't be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone.

- Larry Page (1973- ), co-founder of Google (pictured right)

 

 

No 33Business Ethics Quotes

When bad men combine, the good must associate.

- Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish-born British Member of Parliament (pictured right).

 

 

No 34Business Ethics Quotes

Profit is the measure of right.

- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), English philosopher (pictured right).

 

 

No 35Business Ethics Quotes

By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.

- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German philosopher (pictured right).

 

 

No 36Business Ethics Quotes

Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.

- Marie Curie (1867-1934), Polish-born French physicist (pictured right).

 

 

No 37Business Ethics Quotes

Unless we do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us.

(David talking to Dora in David Copperfield).

- Charles Dickens (1812-70), pictured right, English writer

 

 

No 38Business Ethics Quotes

If I lose my honour, I lose myself,

(Mark Antony. in Antony and Cleopatra)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

Pompey also comments in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

Tis not my profit that does lead my honour. 

 

 

No 39Business Ethics Quotes

Men of good will. That’s all there is between us and the devil.

- Kenny O’Donnell (in the 2000 film Thirteen Days), pictured right.

 

 

No 40Business Ethics Quotes

It is vision and moral responsibility that, in the final analysis, define the manager.

- Peter Drucker (pictured right) in The Practice of Management (1954)

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Quotes