Fundamental Values Project

Quotes on Integrity

Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play--it--safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.
--Cecil Beaton

Without integrity, no company can have positive word of mouth
--Jay Abraham

Men of integrity, by their existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.
--John W. Gardner

Integrity has no need of rules.
--Albert Camus

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Living a life of integrity is one of the greatest missions we can undertake.
--Greg Anderson

A righteous man who walks in his integrity.
How blessed are his sons after him.
--Proverbs 20:7

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.
--Proverbs 11:3

Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do. –Don Galer
We laugh at honor, and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
-- C.S. Lewis

Don't compromise yourself. It's all you've got.
-- Janis Joplin

Integrity -- When you do the right thing even though no one is watching.
-- Anon

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.
-- Sophocles

Lose your wealth and you've lost nothing. Lose your health and you've lost something. Lose your character and you've lost everything.
-- Ben Lapadula

Real integrity stays in place whether the test is adversity or prosperity.
-- Charles Swindoll

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

Don't worry so much about your self-- esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.
-- Laura Schlessinger

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
-- Spencer Johnson

Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.
-- Oliver Cromwell

In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
-- Gamaliel Bradford

Integrity: A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, What's in a name? I answer, Just about everything you do.
-- Morris Mandel

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.
-- Charles Caleb Colton

Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don't.
-- Peter Scotese

Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.
-- John D. MacDonald

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. --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

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

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. --David Star Jordan

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

Character is much easier kept than recovered. --Thomas Paine

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. --Oscar Wilde

I hope that my achievements in life shall be these -- that I will have fought for what was right and fair, that I will have risked for that which mattered, and that I will have given help to those who were in need that I will have left the earth a better place for what I've done and who I've been. --C. Hoppe

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

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

Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. --Henry David Thoreau

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

We are double--edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice. --Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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 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

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

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place. --Charles Caleb Colton

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

You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation. --Charles Dickens

I am,
indeed,
a king,
because I know how
to rule myself.
--Pietro Aretino

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

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

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. --Robert A. Heinlein

Modesty and unselfishness -- these are virtues which men praise -- and pass by. --André Maurois

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. --Dwight L. 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

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

Minor vices lead to major ones, but minor virtues stay put. --Mignon McLaughlin

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

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

We are more inclined to regret our virtues than our vices; but only the very honest will admit this. --Holbrook Jackson

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

How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

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

Virtue is its own revenge. --E.Y. Harburn

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

It is hardly respectable to be good nowadays. --Edith Sitwell

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

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

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them. --La Rochefoucauld

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

Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor 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

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons. --Thomas Hardy

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's your combination sinners -- your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards -- who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute. --Thornton Wilder

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

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,

Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us. --Robert S. Lynd

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient. --Bodie Thoene

Though of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. --Oscar Wilde

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

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

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

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

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

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. --H. Jackson Browne

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

It has ever been my experience that folks who have no vices, have very few virtues. --Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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

A healthy mind has an easy breath. --Author Unknown

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

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

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

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

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

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