Quotes About Integrity

I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us.

No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live.

La seule obligation que j'aie le droit d'adopter, c'est d'agir à tout moment selon ce qui me paraît juste.

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth.

The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard

Si vous voulez convaincre un homme qu'il agit mal, agissez bien. Mais ne vous souciez pas de le convaincre. Les hommes croient ce qu'ils voient. Alors, donnez-leur à voir.

I know of no redeeming qualities in me but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I have to fall back on to this ground. This is my argument in reserve for all cases ... When I am condemned, and condemn myself utterly, I think straightway, "But I rely on my love for some things." Therein I am whole and entire.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

Ci sono novecentonovantanove sostenitori della virtù ogni uomo virtuoso, ma è più facile trattare con il reale possessore di qualcosa che con il suo guardiano temporaneo.

Sotto un governo che imprigiona ingiustamente non importa chi, il vero posto dove può vivere un uomo giusto è la prigione.

Ma il ricco [...] è sempre colluso con l'istituzione che lo fa ricco. In termini assoluti, più soldi corrispondono a minor virtù, poiché il denaro si insinua tra l'uomo e i suoi obbiettivi e glieli ottiene, però a scapito della sua onestà.

dopotutto non erano tanto nobili, ma trattavano il ladro nella stessa maniera in cui il ladro li trattava.

If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this;— who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon.

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth anyone's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.

What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day?

Même lorsque vous votez pour la justice, vous ne faites rien pour elle. Vous ne faites qu'exprimer faiblement aux hommes votre désir de la voir l'emporter. Le sage ne doit pas laisser la justice à la merci du hasard ni souhaiter qu'elle l'emporte grâce au pouvoir de la majorité. P.13

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market.

An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.

Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere than this.