Selected integrity quotes

1. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

2. Thank God, I have my work, but instead of earning money by it, I need money to be able to work; that is the difficulty. I think there are no signs in my work that indicate that I shall fail. And I am not a person who works slowly or tamely. Drawing becomes a passion with me, and I throw myself into it more and more. I do not have great plans for the future; if for a moment I feel rising within me the desire for a life without care, for prosperity, each time I go fondly back to the trouble and the cares, to a life full of hardship, and think: It is better so; I learn more from it, and make progress. This is not the road on which one perishes. I only hope the trouble and the cares will not become unbearable, and I have confidence I shall succeed in earning enough to keep myself, not in luxury, but as one who eats his bread in the sweat of his brow.

3. I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

4. If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

5. Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

6. If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

7. No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

8. The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.

9. There's not a single thing on offer in this all-too-temporary world for which you should ever sell your soul.

10. Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.

11. Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.

12. Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.

13. Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?

14. It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

15. Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

16. Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

17. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

18. The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

19. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

20. Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might, perchance, a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right.

21. Loving truth and living honestly is my attitude to life. Be true to yourself and be true to others, thus you can be the judge of your behavior.

22. I'm not denouncing the church, and I'm not interested in people who want me to denounce the church. It's not a church worthy of denouncing.

23. A good life is a main argument.

24. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.

25. I play honestly and I play to win. If I lose, I take my medicine.

26. There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

27. 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!

28. Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

29. An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more.

30. If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.

31. There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don't believe it.

32. You can't serve the public good without the truth as a bottom line.

33. As well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist.

34. You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.

35. Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

36. A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

37. It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.

38. No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

39. When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

40. All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man.

41. The vessel, though her masts be firm, Beneath her copper bears a worm.

42. The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

43. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. **Walden: Thoreau's classic account of the two years he spent living in a cabin at Walden Pond. (Non-Fiction, 1854, 251 pages)

44. When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough; I've done my duty, and I've done no more.

45. Character is what God and the angels know of us; reputation is what men and women think of us.

46. I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.

47. If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.

48. Let the public mind become corrupt, and all efforts to secure property, liberty, or life by the force of laws written on paper will be as vain as putting up a sign in an apple orchard to exclude canker worms.

49. Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth wouldst teach; Thy soul must overflow, if thou Another's soul would'st reach! It needs the overflow of heart To give the lips full speech. Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed; Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed.

50. You raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right - God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

51. When another comedian has a lousy show, I'm the first one to admit it [1]

52. Put your muscle where your mouth is.

53. You can't teach others if you are living the same way.

54. It is said that serious apprehensions are to some extent entertained (in which I do not share) that the peace of this District may be disturbed before the 4th of March next. In any event, it will be my duty to preserve it, and this duty shall be performed. In conclusion it may be permitted to me to remark that I have often warned my countrymen of the dangers which now surround us. This may be the last time I shall refer to the subject officially. I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country.

55. Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.

56. Of right and wrong he taught Truths as refined as ever Athens heard; And (strange to tell!) he practised what he preached.

57. We're going to keep pounding. These guys [Bush Administration] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.

58. Foul canker of fair virtuous action, Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth, Envys abhorred child, Detraction, I here expose, to thy all-tainting breath, The issue of my brain: snarl, rail, bark, bite, Know that my spirit scorns Detraction's spite.

59. As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made the gradual and conscious expression of his personality in literature the aim of his life, has no right to suppress himself any carefully considered work which seemed good enough when it was written. Suppression, if it is deserved, will come rapidly enough from the same causes that suppress the unworthy members of a man's family.

60. Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do.

61. You may be as orthodox as the devil and as wicked.

62. I actually feel as though I make choices with my kids in mind. It helps me to be clear about what I will and won't make. I want to have my kids say, 'My pa did only the things that he felt he should do.' I don't want them to be embarrassed. I think maybe they can be proud of some of the work I do. Maybe they will be proud that I decided to go against the grain a little bit and fight the good fight. When you're older, drooling, and your children are changing your diapers, they will know that there was integrity.

63. I just don't want to look back in 30 or 40 or 50 years and have my grandkids say, 'You did a lot of stupid shit, Granddad. What an idiot you were, smiling for the cameras and playing the game.' (1999)

64. Maybe I was just too dumb to sell out. (2004)

65. I've never had an allergy to the idea of commercial success. When you put a movie out and it's successful, that's great. I just wanted to get there in the right way, in a way that's not too compromising or demeaning or ugly. (2004)

66. During [Edward Scissorhands] I got the phone call saying I was out of [21 Jump Street]. I felt like, 'Ah, possibilities.' I was freed up. I swore to myself that I would never again compromise to the degree that I had. I swore that I wouldn't just follow the commercial road. I wouldn't do what was expected of me or what was necessary to maintain whatever it is - a popular or financially rewarding career. I promised myself that I wouldn't do that. (2004)

67. When you meet someone like Hunter Thompson and watch him, get to know him - people say whatever they want to say about Hunter and his books - he's pure, he's absolutely pure. There's really not an ugly bone in the guy's body. (2004)

68. I could do a Bruce Willis thing and make a record now, but it would just milk my teen-boy, pop-idol image. I'd rather do nothing than do that. (1988)

69. When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.

70. Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

71. 'Commander Bainimarama is clean and fighting for the truth. The stand he is taking is going to save the Fijian race.' (on the opposition of Bainimarama, the Military commander, to many of the policies pursued by the present government).

72. Newspapers, universities and schools should encourage the study of the country's pertinent components. To know them is sufficient, without mincing words; for whoever brushes aside even a part of the truth, whether through intention or oversight, is doomed to fall. The truth he lacks thrives on negligence, and brings down whatever is built without it. It is easy to resolve our problem knowing its components than resolve them without knowing them.

73. Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life. To give one's life is a right only when one gives it unselfishly.

74. He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter.

75. A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself. A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.

76. Truth does not need to borrow garments from error. (Also translated as: Truth does not need to borrow garments from falsehood.)

77. Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way.

78. I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

79. To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

80. Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

81. I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.

82. 'It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.' (p. 8)

83. He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone along the way.

84. Don't make these pictures any better. Just keep them the way they are.

85. The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse - it will not submit to the mold of flattery.

86. Intellectual responses are known as opinions and Mary had them and had them. Still she was so little of an ideologue as to be sometimes unsettling in her refusal of tribal reaction - left or right, male or female, that sort of thing. She was doggedly personal and often this meant being so aslant that there was, in this determined rationalist, an endearing crankiness, very American and homespun somehow.

87. Mary McCarthy was a rara avis, a rare bird: a truly sexy intellectual who was nonetheless more interested in truth than in being intellectually sexy or fashionable. ... The real beauty of her life and work is that she was an explorer who never compromised her freedom or integrity. Her writing was symptomatic of this. It never quite became an end in itself, but remained, throughout her life, a means to articulating herself as 'her own woman'. In that she succeeded marvellously and it is the way in which she did it for which she deserves lasting respect and emulation.

88. Saying is one thing and doing is another.

89. He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.

90. I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.

91. Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.

92. There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

93. The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

94. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.

95. It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

96. Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word.

97. That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.

98. I hope you're not leading a double life, pretending to be wicked while being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

99. I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

100. I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.