Quotes About Integrity

We think sometimes we're only drawn to the good, but we're actually drawn to the authentic. We like people who are real more than those who hide their true selves under layers of artificial niceties

This feels like a critical fork in my road-success lies to the left, moral integrity to the right; are they ever on the same road?

She was a woman who cared more about what she was right about than about being right.

But of course Anton turned out to be brave and strong, and so he died while he was still unlikable.

It is very unlikely your people are lying to you. But your measurements definitely are.

Who would not rather trust and be deceived?

In fine, that it is not enough to be good, without behaving in such a manner as shall make others acknowledge us to be so.

Sandy is kind. But she has a smart mind

To regret your sins of commission as much as your sins of omission is to prove yourself a most unworthy sinner.

It is easier to be generous than to be just.

There's one thing your writing must have to be any good at all. It must have you. Your soul, your self, your heart, your guts, your voice -- you must be on that page. In the end, you can't make the magic happen for your reader. You can only allow the miracle of 'being one with' to take place. So dare to be yourself. Dare to reveal yourself. Be honest, be open, be true...If you are, everything else will fall into place.

The best advice for fighting with a screwed-up person is simple: don't. You cannot be logical with an illogical person. The only way to win is to never, under any circumstances, get pulled into an argument. If you fight, you lose! Questioning choices questions integrity. Suggesting different ideas implies lack of intelligence. Seeking negotiation disputes power. Wanting compromise conveys weakness.

I dislike any form of betrayal. Too many people take their marriage vows lightly. If one is fortunate enough to inspire affection, one should strive to deserve it, do you not think?

The man, most man, Works best for men: and, if most man indeed, He gets his manhood plainest from his soul.

We all have known good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax; Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs; And damned the general world for standing up. Now, may the good God pardon all good men!

And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword. Ready to do what a hero can.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

The Grand Duke, too, whose part I have been taking hitherto (because he did seem to me a good man, more sinned against than sinning) — the Grand Duke I give up from henceforth, seeing that he has done this base thing of taking again his Austrian titles in his proclamations coincidently with the approach of the Austrians.

There is great injustice everywhere and a rankling party-spirit, and to speak the truth and act it appears still more difficult than usual.

As to wearing the badge of a party, either in politics or religion, I may say that never in my life was I so far from coveting such a thing. And then poetry breathes in another outer air. And then there is not an existent set of any-kind-of-politics I could agree with if I tried —

The secret to getting away with lying, is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another

I don't want what you want," I said. "And I'm not going to help you. I don't even want to argue with you, because while I know that human beings are capable of assimilating, adopting, internalizing, integrating, and identifying with new sets of ideas—because we have, multiple times in the history of the species—I've discovered that I don't actually care what you think, because you are an awful person and you want awful things.

The most important thing in the universe, it turns out, is a complex of subjective and individual approximations. Of tries and fails. Of ideals, and things we do to try to get close to those ideals. It's who we are when nobody is looking.

You'd never break this one. You'd never even bend her. She'd die like Joan of Arc first, and spit blood on you through a smile.