Quotes About Integrity

Toohey: Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us. Roark: But I don't think of you.

A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.

The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgement and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been calle anti social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads.

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.

And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.

A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity, or dishonesty of others.

Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one's consciousness can permit the faking of existence.

There can be no compromise on moral principles.

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.

There are no contradictions. If you find one, check your premises.

A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.

There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.

You want to do it? I might. If you offer me enough. Howard—anything you ask. Anything. I'd sell my soul... That's the sort of thing I want you to understand. To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul—would you understand why that's much harder?

I am not the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others.

An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.

Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.

I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

Roark smiled, Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.

I hate incompetence. I think it's probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn't make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary.

Only the man who extols the purity of love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.