Integrity Quotes

"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. p. 55"

"If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 222"

"Clarity about what matters provides the clarity to say no to what does not."

"One act I will never stand for is leaving our fellows behind. Bugger military protocol, or lofty notions of honour. I can't live with running out on a pal, and I won't let any of you do it either. Major Mike Mallory, p. 60"

"Core values = The organization’s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of general guiding principles, not to be confused with specific cultural or operating practices, and not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency."

"The great man dwells on what is real and not what is surface."

"A man of integrity is not afraid of the truth, even when the truth is painful or diminishes his ego."

"You have to find the truth in the character, even if the character is a fool."

"There is no substitute for honesty... there is NO HOPE for the person who is dishonest... p.88"

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison... the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor."

"The most important thing you can do to improve your life is to regain control of your attention."

"There is something I must tell you. When Leonidas selected you for the Three Hundred, I went to him in private and argued strenuously against your inclusion. I thought you would not fight. [...] I was wrong. Polynikes p. 324"

"To lead people, walk behind them."

"An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance... Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no "loyalty," he owes no "love" and no "attitudes"--he owes performance and nothing else. .... The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform. p. 229"

"Radical realism is the highest form of integrity. It is the ability to look at the world and yourself without the distortion of ego."

"The hardest thing is to be simple. It takes a lot of work to be simple and a lot of integrity to stay that way."

"The only government that I recognize—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army — is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice."

"A deep life is a good life, any way you look at it."

"This aspis was my father's and his father's before him. I have sworn before God to die before another man took this from my hand. He crossed to the ranks of Thespians, to a man, an obscure warrior among them. Into the fellow's grasp he placed the shield. Polynikes p. 405"

"Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere."

"If you lie to yourself about your motivations, you have already surrendered your integrity to your shadow."

"Honesty is the most important thing in comedy, but you have to be honest about the right things."

"What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. p. 494"

"A world without email is a world where we can finally return to the integrity of focused work."

"Both men were aware of the imperative held by all warrior races to serve honor before survival. Mother Bones (Narrator) p. 10"

"He who knows he has enough is rich."

"The most dangerous lie is the one you tell yourself to maintain a false sense of moral superiority."

"Artistic integrity is about knowing when to stop listening to the critics and start listening to the banjo."

"As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct. p. 486"

"The ability to stay focused will be the superpower of the twenty-first century."

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to."

"To have integrity is to be a person of your word, but first, you must be a person who knows their own mind."

"You can't just wait for inspiration. You have to work through the lack of it. That is where character is built."