Quotes About Integrity

We all need someone to point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes. That's the poet's job.

Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.

Falsehood often lurks upon the tongue of him, who, by self-praise, seeks to enhance his value in the eyes of others.

a life in which conduct does not fairly well accord with principles is a silly life; and that conduct can only be made to accord with principles by means of daily examination, reflection, and resolution.

Beware of those who laugh at nothing or everything.

A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.

Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time.

Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to.

A man to whom a woman cannot look up, she cannot love. Yet, it is marvelous how a woman contrives to find something to look up to in a man.

Political courage is not political suicide.

Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.' Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope.'

I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me.

Of course clergymen and other paid teachers and moralists admonished us to be upright and unselfish, and for people with good incomes it was easy to condemn those living on the edge of poverty as inferior, impractical, shiftless, and lacking respect for the social code. It was easy to shout thief at the other fellow when you had no temptation to steal-I mean steal in a petty way. But stealing in a big way was often accepted as good business judgment.

I do not think of myself as having arrived at any degree of achievement commensurate with my potential talent and capacity for work. I am just one among the many who have tried to approximate some measure of integrity in a world that is a sorry bewilderment of wretchedness and affluence.

Why care for grammar as long as we are good?

Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.

The source of morality must be moral.

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.

COMMENTO DI CHURCHILL SULL'UOMO A volte l'uomo inciampa nella verità, ma nella maggior parte dei casi si rialzerà e continuerà per la sua strada.

Nothing is about honest disagreement; it is all about your interlocutor's lack of basic human decency.

From my earliest days, I learned of the evils of objectifying others.

These are practical reasons to avoid them, but there's the moral reason, too: they're just plain wrong. We simply should not put up with insults, whether from the other side or our own. Indeed, I'll take it a step further. When someone on your side insults people on the other side, it is your responsibility to take it personally and stand up for those with whom you disagree.

John Adams's maxim: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."1

This is a classic weaponization of values. It's not something that good or moral leaders should ever do.