Quotes About Integrity

Trouthe is the hyeste thyng that men may kepe.

Looke who that is moost vertuous alway,Pryvee and apert, and most entendeth ayTo do the gentil dedes that he kan;Taak hym for the grettest gentil man.

Reule wel thyself, that other folk canst rede.And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

Fy on possessiounBut if a man be vertuous withal.

He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.

In the last analysis we must be judged by what we do and not by what we believe. We are as we behave — with a very small margin of credit for our unmanifested vision of how we might behave if we could take the trouble.

No cheap tricks.

Where faith costs nothing, faith loses respect, even to those who possess it.

Also, always encourage 'being good' over 'doing good.' Acts of goodness are the difficulty for us and should, of course, be avoided. 'Being good' is far less problematic, largely because it lacks definition and can be solely a state of mind completely unattached to reality.

For example, your man might think: I don't steal. Maybe on my taxes, everyone does that, but not in the way I heard so and so stole from his company. See? Those men for whose opinion he cares approve of embezzlement in one area, not the other. He uses them to maintain a claim on goodness while at the same time stealing.

If they ever envision Goodness as a thing that exists outside them, some real thing they've been called to participate in by their actions, well then, we're headed right back toward The Virtues.

And keep them thinking in terms of 'being good' as this is not an end so much as a means to something else —happiness, respect, self-esteem, etc… And whatever their true end is, take it away, and so goes their goodness.

Thus it should appear to everyone that the best pastime of all is to be often in good company, far from unworthy men and from unworthy activities from which no good can come.

Don't judge a man by his opinions, but what his opinions have made of him.

You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying

To make a vow is a greater sin than to break one.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

A man has virtues enough if, on account of them, he deserves forgiveness for his faults.

Siempre he procurado imponerme leyes que sólo entren en vigor cuando me sea casi imposible violarlas.

Greatness has nothing to do with results or with success.

Education is the art of making man ethical

Power and position often make a man trifle with the truth.

Adversity often hatches out the true nobility of character.

You cannot drive people to do things which are right, but you can love them into doing them, if your example is of such a character that they can see you mean what you say.