Quotes About Integrity

Be conscious of God and speak always the truth

Through them, I resolved the lingering questions of my racial identity. For it turned out there was no single way to be Black; just trying to be a good man was enough.

And then there was the unsettling fact that, despite whatever my mother might claim, the bullies, cheats, and self-promoters seemed to be doing quite well, while those she considered good and decent people seemed to get screwed an awful lot.

If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren't willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.

But it's just that he is basically a very honest person. That makes him uncompromising sometimes.

Lincoln, and those buried at Gettysburg, remind us that we should pursue our own absolute truths only if we acknowledge that there may be a terrible price to pay.

When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal.

Getting things done meant subjecting yourself to criticism, and the alternative—playing it safe, avoiding controversy, following the polls—was not only a recipe for mediocrity but a betrayal of the hopes of those citizens who'd put you in office.

We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.

Wanting to be in politics but not of it.

There are things more important," he told me, "than getting reelected.

At times, I felt like the fisherman in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, sharks gnawing at my catch as I tried to tow it to shore. But as the weeks passed, the core of our reforms survived the amendment process remarkably intact.

You could talk stuff to rattle an opponent, but that you should shut the hell up if you couldn't back it up.

Until those basic human responses that normally govern our daily lives—honesty, empathy, courtesy, patience, goodwill—feel like weakness when extended to the other side.

those basic human responses that normally govern our daily lives—honesty, empathy, courtesy, patience, goodwill—

If I say I will do something, I must do it. Otherwise, how will people know that my word is true?

They were actors in a rigged game, I decided, and I wanted no part of it.

the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

I figure if it works, we get through this. If it doesn't, we probably lose. But either way, I'll be saying what I believe.

Honest, decent men and women with attainable ambitions, and the determination to see those ambitions through.

honesty, and hard work, and empathy

She was one of those quiet heroes that we have all across America," I said. "They're not famous. Their names aren't in the newspapers. But each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They sacrifice for their children and their grandchildren. They aren't seeking the limelight—all they try to do is just do the right thing.

every so often I needed a dose of her passion and integrity, both as a temperature check on my conscience and because she often had specific, creative

Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.