Unethical Quotes & Sayings

What shocked me, and what I wasn't prepared for, was just how brutal and how unethical some people can be in the NFL. I mean, there were some great people, but there were some real snakes, too. I was like, 'Holy cow!' But it made me a better person, and it got me ready for other things. — Terry Crews

Zoo is inhuman, it is unethical, and it is sick and stupid! Just because children and their ignorant parents go and have some fun there, slavery and torture cannot be justified! A society which has zoos does not deserve to be free! You deserve freedom only if you let others to be free, including animals! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has ever seen. — Vladimir Nabokov

All I am asking is that we follow the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is fundamentally a moral issue, not an economic issue. Given what we know now, it is simply unethical to impose risk of grave damage on future generations just so that we can have a few more consumer products today. — Ken Caldeira

Any attorney with a conscience always speaks the truth. An attorney can and should practice law in a scrupulous manner, but some dishonest attorneys disregard ethical mandates in order to win. Unethical attorneys shape their clients stories, which is a fancy way of assisting them tell a fib. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Then Whelk's mother had called and told Whelk that his father had been arrested for unethical business practices and income tax evasion. It turned out the company had been trading with war criminals, a fact his mother knew and Whelk had guessed, and the FBI had been watching for years. Overnight, the Whelks lost everything.
It was in the papers the next day, the catastrophic crash of the Whelk family fortune. Both of Whelk's girlfriends left him. Well, the second one was technically Czerny's, so perhaps that didn't count. — Maggie Stiefvater

The first time I spoke publicly about the Stanford Prison Experiment, Stanley Milgram told me: Your study is going to take all the ethical heat off of my back. People are now going to say yours is the most unethical study ever, and not mine. — Philip Zimbardo

Writing is learned by imitation. I learned to write mainly by reading writers who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and by trying to figure out how they did it. S. J. Perelman told me that when he was starting out he could have been arrested for imitating Ring Lardner. Woody Allen could have been arrested for imitating S. J. Perelman. And who hasn't tried to imitate Woody Allen? Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else's writing. They think it's unethical - which is commendable. Or they're afraid they'll lose their own identity. The point, however, is that we eventually move beyond our models; we take what we need and then we shed those skins and become who we are supposed to become. But — William Zinsser

Is it a thorny question of ethics? Or is it the sort of ethical question where the right choice is easy, but the unethical answer is too tempting? — Courtney Milan

As FIFA leaked information to the media, portraying me as an unethical person, I felt I was left naked, helpless to defend myself, as they repeatedly cut me with a sharp knife. — Chung Mong-joon

Knowledge has a great power. Therefore, unethical use of knowledge can be extremely harmful. — Eraldo Banovac

Unethical conduct is actually the conduct of destruction and fear; lies are told because one is afraid of the consequences should one tell the truth; thus, the liar is inevitably a coward, the coward is inevitably a liar. — L. Ron Hubbard

The Capitalist system with its exploitation of those who are economically weak, with its robbery of the workers labour power, with its unethical way of appraising human beings by the number of things and the amount of money he possesses, instead of by their internal value and their achievements, must be replaced by a new and just economic system, in a word by German Socialism. — Gregor Strasser

So why in the world would anyone support the unethical, failed use of embryonic stem cells instead of the ethical, successful use of adult stem cells? Because they do not know the difference. — Virginia Foxx

I think now we have a very unique opportunity, thanks to the election result, thanks to such a big vote for the Greens, to say you know what, we have to face it. Otherwise this generation will be robbing the next generation of their future, and that's immoral and unethical. — Tim Costello

Marketing isn't sleazy car salesman tactics.
Marketing isn't tricking people into buying.
Marketing isn't unethical.
Marketing isn't intrusive self-promotion.
Marketing is two things: (1) creating lasting connections with people, through (2) a focus on being relentlessly helpful. — Tim Grahl

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

The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical. — Saul Alinsky

As the old saying goes, you can't spell unprofessional, unethical, or unaccountable without the UN. — Brad Thor

It's not that I think you're weaker, I know you are." He eyed me over his glass of milk. " I'm not trying to be obnoxious by saying that. You are weaker than us."
"Maybe physically but not mentally or .. morally." I countered.
"Morally?" He sounded confused.
"Yeah, like, I'm not going to tell the world about you guys to get money. And if I was captured by an Arum, I wouldn't bring them back to you all."
"Wouldn't you?"
Offended, I leaned back and folded my arms. "No. I wouldn't"
"Even if your life was threatened?" Disbelief colored his tone.
"Shaking my head, I laughed. "Just because I'm human doesn't mean I'm a coward or unethical. I'd never do anything that would put Dee in danger. Why would my life be more valuable than hers? Now yours ... debatable. But not Dee. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a "good" (i.e. "moral) girl and therefore worthy of praise. — Jessica Valenti

Good relentlessly calls us to accountability, abjectly refusing to hand us free passes for poor choices and unethical decisions. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Clearly this business of treating minds, particularly this big business of treating young minds, has not policed itself, and has no incentive to put a stop to the kinds of fraudulent and unethical practices that are going on. — Patricia Schroeder

I live in an unethical society that coarsens the sensibilities and thwarts the capacities for goodness of most people but makes available for minority consumption an astonishing array of intellectual and aesthetic pleasures. Those who don't enjoy (in both senses) my pleasures have every right, from their side, to regard my consciousness as spoiled, corrupt, decadent. I, from my side, can't deny the immense richness of these pleasures, or my addiction to them. — Susan Sontag

Regarding Christians who feel they have a free pass on being criticized; When the blind worship of an invisible being and the doctrine of millennia-old texts written by ignorant men in another country becomes more important than real, present human beings, then the blind worshiper SHOULD be shunned and criticized. It would be unethical to respond otherwise. — Kelli Jae Baeli

If a country has a fascist leader, this is a great horror for that country; but there is much greater horror: The existence of ignorant and unethical masses who support that primitive leader! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Apparently it was unethical for lawyers to sleep with their clients. This from a man who offered legal representation to assassins. — Carrie Vaughn

I approach every role with the same commitment because I'm being paid for it. To not do so would be unethical. — Anupam Kher

CARROTS AND STICKS: The Seven Deadly Flaws 1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation. 2. They can diminish performance. 3. They can crush creativity. 4. They can crowd out good behavior. 5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior. 6. They can become addictive. 7. They can foster short-term thinking. — Daniel H. Pink

I ended your experiment. Because you're not a scientist. You're a monster. I'm not leaving any of them at your mercy. — Rachel Caine

I wonder if it would be unethical for me to turn James Marsters? And then force him to fake the Cockney accent? And then make him my love monkey? — Molly Harper

The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means. — Saul Alinsky

Satan uses any means, ethical or unethical, to distract us from trusting in God, drawing us away to trust in ourselves by moving us into fear, into anger, into pride. — J.P. Moreland

An ethical atheist is infinitely more valuable than an unethical pious! What matters is whether you are ethical or not; your beliefs are utterly trivial beside this matter! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Man is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical animal on earth. — Michael Fox

Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong, and hence whaling is unethical. — Peter Singer

One thing is to have the protection of human rights for homosexuals and quite something else is this promotion of indecency. It would be immoral and unethical to deny the homosexuals their human rights. But it is also immoral to consider disorders as normal. None of these deviances are biological. They are acquired by fantasizing about them. — Ali Sina

Mr. Speaker, the goal of stem cell research should be to help our fellow human beings. The debate on this issue has, unfortunately, moved into dangerous unethical territory when perfectly moral alternatives exist. — Jim Ryun

Since Congress makes the laws they are under the delusion that anything they do is legal, no matter if it is unwise, unethical, or un-Constitutional. — Jim Babka

I talked to one accountant, a very nice fellow who I would have been glad to have his family marry into mine. He said, "What these other accounting firms have done is very unethical. The [tax avoidance scheme] works best if it's not found out [by the IRS], so we only give it to our best clients, not the rest, so it's unlikely to be discovered. So my firm is better than the others." [Laughter] I'm not kidding. And he was a perfectly nice man. People just follow the crowd ... Their mind just drifts off in a ghastly way ... — Charlie Munger

I can look back and recognize the things I've done and said that were wrong: unethical, gratuitously hurtful, golden-rule-breaking, et cetera. Sometimes the wrongness was even clear at the time, though not as clear as it is now. But I did these things because I felt the pull of a trajectory, a sense of experience piling up the way it does as you turn the pages of a novel. I would be lying if I said I was a different person now. I am the same person. I would do it all again. — Emily Gould

Indeed, the researchers found that wide-faced men perceived themselves as powerful, and this contributed to their unethical behavior. — Matthew Hertenstein

Reality is negotiable. Outside of science and law, all rules can be bent or broken, and it doesn't require being unethical. — Tim Ferriss

The most ethical way to deal with an unethical situation would be to simply say: 'We did something wrong.' But nobody in a family like mine would ever respond like this. — Patti Davis

All new technologies are feared at first. But that fear can't be allowed to hinder the search for potential in the unknown. Think about electricity, or the airplane or one of the first vaccines ever administered. Of course, they were a bit... scary at first. But think of how far they have brought civilization. There is nothing unethical going on here, just unadulterated pioneering. — S.L. Dunn

What I'm doing is writing stories about women who care about justice. They are women who think about the difference between right and wrong, what's legal and illegal, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral. — Lisa Scottoline

If you are earning your money through violence, all this money is unethical, because violence and ethics cannot be together! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I think "immoral" is probably the wrong word to use ... I prefer the word "unethical." — Ivan Boesky

It's the oldest story in the world. Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back thanks to the unethical behavior of megalomaniacal mad scientists who never met a corpse they wouldn't try to resurrect. Anyone coming within a hundred yards of my happy ending had better pray that they're immune to bullets. - Shaun Mason — Mira Grant

Business is an establishment that gives you the legal, even though unethical, right to screw the naive-right, left, and in the middle. — W.C. Fields

While toxic food is bad for your health and well-being, so are negative and unethical people. — Frank Sonnenberg

Standing with the poor means walking away from unethical leaders, even when their companies are 'succeeding.' — Jacqueline Novogratz

Money can extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity, encourage unethical behavior, foster short-term thinking, and become addictive. — Daniel H. Pink

Bringing a child into the world without its consent seems unethical. Leaving the womb just seems insane. The womb is nirvana. It's tripping in an eternal orb outside the space-time continuum. It's a warm, wet rave at the center of the earth, but you're the only raver. There's no weird New Age guide. There's no shitty techno. There's only you and the infinite. — Melissa Broder

I consider your conduct unethical and lousy. — Peter Arno

I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing ... any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that. — Sarah Palin

Normal people have rock collections, shell collections, key ring collections and stamp collections. (The Captain had even known somebody with a letterbox collection.) But a people collection? That had to be the most bizarre one he'd come across. Not to mention the most unethical. — Elizabeth Newton

A defrocked heretic accountant, Grimm had learned just enough mathemagics to be a nuisance, if not actually dangerous, and had been thrown out of the Accountants' Guild for unethical use of imaginary numbers. — Simon R. Green

It struck me then, for the first time, how unethical anxiety is, how it voids the reality of other people by conscripting them as palliatives for your own fear. — Adam Haslett

A giant that became the giant through unethical ways is undoubtedly the smallest dwarf ever! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

He finessed his way through it all, playing the "I don't recall" game. He played the same game when asked about how Betty and UD officers had inserted Betty's name on their official visitors' log when it was Monica who actually visited, so as not to betray the president. It was yet another obvious lie on his part. I knew that game. Everyone with eyes could see it. He never recalled how she came to him with letters or papers. There was a back-and-forth on how the Clintons had garnered a lawyer for Monica so she could obfuscate matters and not implicate the president in his defense in Paula Jones's civil sexual harassment case. They discussed how unethical that was, and that's when the president had the nerve to blame the debacle on the information's getting leaked, not that it actually happened. Finally it came down to blaming Monica. — Gary J. Byrne

The only absolute truth is change, and death is the only way to stop change. Life is a series of judgments on changing situations, and no ideal, no belief fits every solution. Yet humans need to believe in something beyond themselves. Perhaps all intelligences do. If we do not act on higher motivations, then we can justify any action, no matter how horrible, as necessary for our survival. We are endlessly caught between the need for high moral absolutes - which will fail enough that any absolute can be demonstrated as false - and our tendency for individual judgments to degenerate into self-gratifying and unethical narcissism. Trying to force absolutes on others results in death and destruction, yet failing to act beyond one's self also leads to death and destruction, generally a lot sooner. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

The church conference begins and ends by attempting to arouse an emotion of the ideal, usually in terms of personal loyalty to the person of Jesus, but very little is done to attach the emotion to specific tasks and projects. Is the industrial life of our day unethical? Are nations imperialistic? Is the family disintegrating? — Reinhold Niebuhr

She licked her parched lips, moistening them, preparing them. "You could lose your job."
"You could be expelled."
"It's unethical."
"Dangerous."
His mouth hovered only millimeters over hers. "We doing this?"
She hooked her arms around his neck. "God yes. — Shelly Bell

Jocks were pretty much exempt from the standards that bound the rest of us. Teachers and administrators humor them because it's in everyone's interests to coax them through school and get them out of the building. Since it's unethical to turn them loose on society, they get sent to college to be kept out of the mix until their frontal lobes develop more fully. As enticement they are given sports scholarships that will later amount to nothing, not even good health. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

An ethical action, like an unethical action, is usually analyzed by politicians purely in pragmatic terms. — Adam Michnik

Even should it be conclusively proved that human beings benefit directly from the suffering of animals, its infliction would nevertheless be unethical and wrong. — Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding

The imbecile always want to give suggestions in areas they know nothing about. There you have, arrogance and ignorance supporting one another and justifying the existence of both. You see it in the person that is single but insists in giving relationship advice to others, in the one that can barely keep his job but insists in giving suggestions about business and in those that insist that everyone should be more ethical but they, themselves, commit unethical actions. — Robin Sacredfire

If you see oppression, violence, injustice and evil deeds, unzip your silence and uncaring indifference, do something and act against all these unethical instances." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from my novel, If I Could Tell You — Angelica Hopes

I think that, too many times, business has been seen as acting in its narrow self-interest rather than, essentially, contributing more broadly to society. I think a lot of that is unintentional; I don't think that many managers are deliberately trying to be unethical or are not trying to be sensitive to social needs. — Michael Porter

Hey, Dad, if I needed to check someone's background, would you be able to do that for me?"
"That's a little unethical, Liv." John smoothed his mustache. "Is this about a boy?"
Livia cringed. "Yeah, it is."
"Then absolutely. I'd be happy to. — Debra Anastasia

Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable - and unethical — Amartya Sen

Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter
it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I wouldn't suggest that being resourceful has anything to do with doing something illegal or unethical, but I've definitely noticed a pattern of being 'creative.' — Scott Weiss

To be ethical, never think of anything unethical. To be moral, never hurt anyone. — Debasish Mridha

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

Southam's research was only one of hundreds of similarly unethical studies. Beecher published a detailed list of the twenty-two worst offenders, including researchers who'd injected children with hepatitis and others who'd poisoned patients under anesthesia using carbon dioxide. Southam's study was included as example number 17. Despite scientists' fears, the ethical crackdown didn't slow scientific progress. In fact, research flourished. And much of it involved HeLa. — Rebecca Skloot

Parents are the biggest culprit. In a bid to make their child score high marks, they are willing to indulge in practices that are unethical, like buying projects. They do not realise that such attempts will not make their child brighter or think over ideas. — Arvind Gupta

Forget your environmental footprint. Think about your ethical footprint. What good is it to build a zero-carbon, energy efficient complex, when the labor producing this architectural gem is unethical at best? — Cameron Sinclair

How little our side of the industry did to move its business to the more ethical firms and to make a fuss about conflicted or unethical behavior. Had a number of us moved our business, we might have slowed or even stopped the 30-year slide in conflicted, unethical behavior that we have experienced. I, for one, regret the modest nature of our moves. We all could have done more. We have tolerated a pretty nasty decline in standards. Shame on us. — Jeremy Grantham

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

I don't see anything immoral, unethical or illegal for a person in a democratic society to be able to spend their own money on the health care of themself or a loved one. — Brian Day

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

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes. — William Hague

It is unethical not to know. It is unethical not to think. It is unethical not to love. It is unethical not to live an impassioned life. It is unethical not to attain greatness. It is unethical to succumb to the fear of envy and the conspiracy of mediocrity. It is unethical not to self-bestow genius. It is unethical not to be the first monkey. — Yasuhiko Kimura

Let me be clear: as I have said repeatedly, I do not believe that all police officers are bad, nor do I believe that most are bad. But there must be a transparent, impartial and fair system to judge those that engage in criminal or unethical acts. — Al Sharpton

I've got to think that that was unethical," Joshua said.
"Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed."
"How is it like a mustard seed?"
"You don't know, do you? Doesn't seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh? — Christopher Moore

Robert Torricelli, a powerful fund-raiser who helped raise more than $100 million for the Democratic party, took inappropriate gifts from a businessman, including an $8,000 gold Rolex watch, for which he was severely admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee in July. To recap: raising $100 million in contributions from gigantic corporations - ethical; taking a watch - unethical. That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1974. — Jon Stewart

If you go to YouTube and look up 'grief' you can find them and it's just an unbelievable tool for an actor to be able to access, without being unethical. It's like accessing the deepest, most painful parts of a person. — Aaron Eckhart

Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical. — Martin Rees

Here is your government at work. A congressman from Colorado said he wants to draft a rule that would make it unethical to have a sexual relationship with an intern. Only Congress would need a rule to tell them cheating on their wives is not ethical. Don't we have that rule? I believe it's called the Sixth Commandment. — Jay Leno

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

Many family planning clinics and - and programs that service women have refused now to take women's - United State's money because they feel that it would be unethical, and it could injure their clients even more, their patients even more. That has to be changed. — Eleanor Smeal

This is who he is. I don't like it any better than any of you do, but frankly he can't help that it's so easy for him to do these things. It's a talent--an unethical one, maybe. But it's who he is. It's why none of us will ever want for anything. You can't vilify him for that. — Meredith Wild

I could see that making judgments about people so that they are tried and sentenced in your head, without asking them for their perspective, is both unethical and unproductive. So I learned to love real integrity and to despise the lack of it. — Ray Dalio

Harris: Yes. In fact, self-deception might have paid evolutionary dividends in other ways. Robert Trivers argues, for instance, that people who can believe their own lies turn out to be the best liars of all - and an ability to deceive rivals has obvious advantages in the state of nature. Now, clearly many things may have been adaptive for our ancestors - such as tribal warfare, rape, xenophobia - that we now deem unethical and would never want to defend. But I'm wondering if you see any possibility that a social system that maximizes truth-telling could be one that fails to maximize the well-being of all participants. Is it possible that some measure of deception is good for us? — Sam Harris

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book! — Bobby Fischer

People deal with all sorts of obstacles at work. There is the fear of failure, plus confrontations with mindless bureaucracy, with other people's egos, with your own ego, with unethical practices, with incompetence, and a wide variety of issues related to race, gender, and sexual orientation — Lodro Rinzler

To be a good detective you must also think like a crook, an immoral, unethical or unlawful person — Robert Kiyosaki

Corporate tax dodging impacts us across generations and over time. It is corrosive. It is unethical. It is unsustainable. — James P. Hoffa