Clay Shirky Quotes

Ethics is not a job that anyone turns to naturally, but every public agency has to have it.

Want to be a well-paid bioethicist, with one, two, or even three university appointments? Just get yourself a two-piece navy polyester suit and follow these three simple rules: (1) Never name names. (2) Screw principles; just follow procedures. (3) Bury the money.

Computer programmers, biotechnologists, environmental scientists, neuroscientists, nanotech engineers - all of these fields, and more, should have at least a course in ethics as part of their degree requirements.

Medicine is a noble art. We must preserve our moral purity.

We're coming down to an extremely unethical society. Very few colleges offer courses in ethics, and very few companies have a code of conduct or code of ethics.

The most important thing to me as a practitioner has been fidelity to my obligations and to the law.

I have a record as attorney general that is separate from my personal beliefs.

The most important ethical issues and the most difficult ones are the human ones because a reporter has enormous power to hurt people.

I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.

We have indeed at the moment little cause for pride: as a profession we have made a mess of things.

The point never to lose sight of is to be guided by the correct thing, as you see it. It's the only way to approach such profound matters and retain your integrity.

In Romania, we have pledged to create a modern public service: well-educated, appropriately rewarded and above all, de-politicized.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

A license to practice law is not a license to violate it.

While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland.

I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so.

I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.

I have principles in my professional and personal life as to how things are done.

My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

Those who hold positions and receive official stipends are incapable of the utmost in loyalty and patriotic service.

It is a very great misfortune that persons employed in the most important Departments should ... have separate interests from the publick whom they profess to serve.

It's easy to get into the grey zone [of ethics].

I have learned that a clear conscience, or a legal opinion, does not make you ethically bullet proof.

Politics is a profession as certainly as base ball.... The only difference is that base ball is on the square; no base ball hero claims he is working in the interest of the crowd in the bleachers.

I don’t believe, and I never did, that a man has to become an informer to practice his profession.