Quotations about Integrity

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day. ~Abraham Lincoln


I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. ~Joseph Baretti, quoted by James Boswell, 1766, commonly misattributed to Samuel Johnson


Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. ~William Shakespeare


Transcend political correctness and strive for human righteousness. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book


Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. ~David Star Jordan, The Philosophy of Despair


Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. ~J.C. Watts


If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. ~Alan Simpson


Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. ~Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism


Character is much easier kept than recovered. ~Thomas Paine


Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. ~Buddha


One does evil enough when one does nothing good. ~German Proverb


There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. ~French Proverb


Don't try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough. ~Arthur Freed


Your life may be the only Bible some people read. ~Author Unknown


Do not repeat anything you will not sign your name to. ~Author Unknown


Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion? ~William Lloyd Garrison


The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out. ~Thomas Babington Macaulay


The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. ~William Safire


Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. ~Albert Einstein


The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck! ~Author Unknown


But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. ~Mark Twain, Huck Finn


Character is higher than intellect. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. ~Abraham Lincoln


Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence. ~Author Unknown


Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. ~Henry Ford


Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb


A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. ~Mark Twain, "What Is Man?", 1906


If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done. ~John Lubbock


You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. ~James D. Miles


I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed. ~Matthew Henry


My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. ~Thomas Paine


Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. ~Isaac Asimov


To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. ~William Shakespeare, Hamlet


A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company. ~Charles Evans Hughes


Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. ~Aristotle


You do not wake up one morning a bad person. It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. ~Rwandan Proverb


A pure hand needs no glove to cover it. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter


We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once. ~Logan Pearsall Smith


Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. ~George Bernard Shaw


Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only. ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon



Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right. ~Mario Cuomo


My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. ~Author Unknown


To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. ~Confucius


We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, 1849


You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation. ~Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge


I am,
indeed,
a king,
because I know how
to rule myself.
~Pietro Aretino, 10 May 1537


Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. ~Michel de Montaigne


Be always sure you're right, then go ahead. ~Davy Crockett


I have fancied myself a rebel, but at every critical moment of my life, I have been exactly the child my parents raised. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology. ~Red Auerbach


Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not a sin - just stupid.) ~Robert A. Heinlein


Goodness is the only investment that never fails. ~Henry David Thoreau


If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it. ~Immanuel Hermass von Fichte


I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met. ~Dwight Lyman Moody


Conscience is that still, small voice that is sometimes too loud for comfort. ~Bert Murray


Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. ~Will Rogers


My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there. ~Indira Gandhi


The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes


A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., speech, Boston, 8 January 1897


There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.
~Ogden Nash


In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. ~Thomas Jefferson


It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Everyone complains of his memory, but no one complains of his judgment. ~Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665


God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless. ~Chester W. Nimitz


I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to. ~Author Unknown


Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. ~Henry Louis Mencken, "Sententiae," This and That: A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1948


The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour. ~Japanese Proverb


For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse. ~Samuel Richardson


There is an ongoing battle between conscience and self-interest in which, at some point,we have to take sides. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I would rather be right than President. ~Henry Clay, speech, 1850


If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral. ~Samuel P. Ginder


I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1809


It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. ~Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit


Goodness is beauty in the best estate. ~Christopher Marlowe


The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn


If we were all to be judged by our thoughts, the hills would be swarming with outlaws. ~Johann Sigurjonsson


Righteousness is easy in retrospect. ~Arthur Schlesinger Jr.


Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits. ~Thomas Hardy


Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. ~Elbert Hubbard, A Thousand and One Epigrams, 1911


I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can. ~Michel de Montaigne, translated


Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. ~Logan Pearsall Smith


Sometimes, to do the right thing, we must keep a promise we never made. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top. ~Frank Moore Colby


It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows. ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Misanthrope


If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare. ~William Arnot


Conscience warns us before it reproaches us. ~Comtesse Diane (Marie Josephine de Suin de Beausacq), Maximes de la vie, 1908


If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it. ~Pablo Casals


As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. ~Morihei Ueshiba


Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? ~Socrates


Every human being has... an attendant spirit.... If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do. ~Lydia M. Child


To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. ~Will Durant


Every man over forty is responsible for his face. ~Abraham Lincoln


Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~William Faulkner


There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ~Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1595


If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging? ~Mark Twain


God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't. ~Alfred Korzyybski


You must question a code of ethics that never impedes your progress. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient. ~Bodie Thoene, Warsaw Requiem


I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. ~Mahatma Gandhi


[T]hough of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. ~Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1890


A man may be born a jackass; but it is his business if he makes himself a double one. ~Martin H. Fischer




Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. ~Ann Landers


Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them. ~Suzanne Necker


The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts. ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670


In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. ~Ambrose Bierce


There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character. ~Frederick W. Faber


If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable. ~Georges Courteline, La philosophie de Georges Courteline, 1917


I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self. ~Martin Luther


How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ~Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams


I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops. ~Oscar Wilde


You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ~Somerset Maugham


Reputation is character minus what you've been caught doing. ~Michael Iapoce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Boardroom


I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back. ~Abraham Lincoln


In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men. ~Mary Renault


Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Following the Equator, 1897


The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. ~Henry David Thoreau


Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown


The only guy I have to get better than is who I am right now. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter


I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. ~George Washington


If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul. ~William Shakespeare


The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. ~Norman Vincent Peale


Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to. ~Arnold H. Glasow


When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil. ~Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949


It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it. ~A.A. Hodge


Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls. ~Victor Hugo


Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. ~Author Unknown


Do whatever you can to capture, or recapture, your life spark - unless it harms others, in which case suffer with as much happiness as you can muster. Your nobility of spirit will spark itself. ~Corri Alius


Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I did not use paint, I made myself up morally. ~Eleanora Duse, Le Gaulois, 1922


Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. ~Abraham Lincoln


Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. ~Mark Twain


I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. ~Albert Einstein, "What I Believe," Forum and Century, 1930


A healthy mind has an easy breath. ~Author Unknown


The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. ~B.C. Forbes


Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird


It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ~Buddha


The time is always right to do what is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.


Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may. ~Mark Twain


'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732


The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. ~G.B. Shaw, Man and Superman, 1905


Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others. ~Henry Taylor


A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. ~Thomas Paine


Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns! ~Allison Gappa Bottke


Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. ~Léon Blum


I'll tell you a big secret, my friend: Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day. ~Albert Camus, The Fall, 1956


If at first you don't succeed, do it like your mother told you. ~Author Unknown


A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. ~Doug Larson


Take care that no one hates you justly. ~Publilius Syrus


It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ~Mark Twain


We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.


Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. ~William Lloyd Garrison


You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. ~Harriet Woods


Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. ~Nordstrom's Employee Handbook


Have a very good reason for everything you do. ~Laurence Olivier