Ethics. Integrity. Both words weave their way through most business and political news these days. So I thought is would be fun to see what some famous folks have said about them over the years.

As I read through dozens of quotes I couldn’t help wondering at the hypocrisy of so many in politics and the financial industries had ever done the same—or if they would even recognize themselves if they did.

Think about it; Albert Camus said, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” If that is the case there are a lot of beasts running around these days.

If it’s true that “integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching,” I wonder what it means when people skip, ignore or just don’t bother when people are watching—maybe that’s the real definition of arrogance.

If Samuel Richardson was correct when he said, “Calamity is the test of integrity,” then Washington and Wall Street fail miserably and they certainly don’t believe Anon’s common wisdom that says, “Don’t worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.”

Perhaps they aren’t guilty by reason of insanity—that is if we concur with Nietzsche, “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”

The last word goes to Albert Einstein, “Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.”

Join me tomorrow for a look at why flexible ethics are what really pave the road to Hell.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erdogan/3112323705/

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 1:10 am and is filed under Quotable Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: Ethics, integrity
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