857 Integrity Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

A good life is a main argument.

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.

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

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.

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!

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

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.

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

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.

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

It is not to be supposed that any one will attain to the full realization of what he purposes, even when those purposes do not involve united action with others; he will fall short; he will in some measure be overcome by contending or inert opposition. But something he will attain, if he continues to aim high. What, then, would I have? you ask. I would have men invest themselves with the dignity of an aim higher than the chase for wealth; choose a thing to do in life outside of the making of things, and keep it in mind, - not for a day, nor a year, but for a life-time. And then keep faith with themselves! Not be a light-o'-love, to-day professing this and to-morrow that, and easily reading oneself out of both whenever it becomes convenient; not advocating a thing to-day and to-morrow kissing its enemies' sleeve, with that weak, coward cry in the mouth, 'Circumstances make me.' Take a good look into yourself, and if you love Things and the power and the plenitude of Things better than you love your own dignity, human dignity, Oh, say so, say so! Say it to yourself, and abide by it. But do not blow hot and cold in one breath. Do not try to be a social reformer and a respected possessor of Things at the same time. Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an armchair for it.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

Let us not foist this humbug on the world.

I think its a disgrace that Mr. Gibbons is using our handsome Almighty Lord to win himself a People's Choice Award or whatever.

Phil, this is character assasination.

He was a crook.

Deeds, not words.

(Recollection of what he was thinking to himself when confronted by the military): 'They want me out, they want me to abrogate the constitution and this is exactly what Speight wants and if they belong to Speight, I don't belong to them.'

James Ah Koy, Senator and former Cabinet Minister: (From a Senate speech, 10 May, 2004): 'Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was a man who is loved by many today and is appreciated for what he was - a man for all seasons, who was true to his God and his belief, true to his wife and family, true to his country, a man of faith, unswervingly for what he believed in and strived for.'

Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Vice-President of Fiji (2005-): 'Ratu Mara is a man who stands for the truth, he hated lies.'

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

O love, whose lordly hand Has bridled my desires, And raised my hunger and my thirst To dignity and pride, Let not the strong in me and the constant Eat the bread or drink the wine That tempt my weaker self. Let me rather starve, And let my heart parch with thirst, And let me die and perish, Ere I stretch my hand To a cup you did not fill, Or a bowl you did not bless.

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

For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.

Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

Wes Clark is a man of whom you can ask a question, and he will look you directly in the eye, and give you the most truthful and complete answer you can imagine. You will know the absolute truth of the statement as well as the thought process behind the answer. You will have no doubt as to the intellect of the speaker and meaning of the answer to this question....So you can see, as a politician, he has a lot to learn.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

I will never work merely to make a reputation for myself, to be popular for appearances rather than for what I am. My task is to lead my country through service.

We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear.

charity begins in your own family. 'Charitable spirits' mustn't forget to keep their own slates clean, to address problems and inequities within their own four walls with decency and fairness before trying to make the world a better place. People who aren't willing to do that are not sincere in their claim to benevolence.

The object of this volume is not to cast fresh blame on authorities and individuals, nor is it to expose one nation more than another to accusations of deceit.

I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.

Handle gut und anstandig, weniger anderen zu gefallen, eher um deine eigene Achtung nicht zu verscherzen.

A promise must never be broken.

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie.

'Olen yrittanyt puhua mahdollisimman totta.' ('I've tried to speak as true as I can.')

To tell the truth is revolutionary.

'Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing.'

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

'If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.'

'Two half-truths do not make a truth, and two half-cultures do not make a culture.'

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

The little honesty that exists among authors is discernible in the unconscionable way they misquote from the writings of others.

The most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency.

Unlike nearly every other politician who ever lived, anywhere in the world, Barry Goldwater always said exactly what was on his mind. He spared his listeners nothing.

Which do you believe most likely to enter an insane convention, a body of English gentlemen honoured by the favour of their Sovereign and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, managing your affairs for five years, I hope with prudence, and not altogether without success, or a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself?

There is no wisdom like frankness.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

They that touch pitch will be defiled.

In death he remains as he was in life. All show with no substance.

Take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don't hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative laws of the intellectual integrity governing universe.

A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is a pattern integrity. Each individual is a pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static.

It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate. You can decieve others, you can decieve your brain-self, but you can't decieve your mind-self - for mind deals only in the discovery of truth and the interrelationship of all truths. The cosmic laws with which mind deals are noncorruptible. Cosmic evolution is omniscient God comprehensively articulate.

The question of integrity will get finer and finer and more delicate and more beautiful.