Quotes About Integrity

Your authenticity is the gateway to all good things

My father always said that it is a reasonable expectation of life that no one will go out of his way, against his own interest, to break his word or to hurt another person. And this turns out, not just in obvious cases, for example haters, pathological people and institutions, sadists, but in everyday life itself to be plain untrue. I wonder why. A reasonable expectation of life, I have found, is hardly ever quite borne out.

He lived on frankness and economy.

She was by no means one of the great refusers. Not an existentialist hero, or a Rosa Parks, or even a Bartleby.

Cheat at this game.

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

The selfish thing to do was to play to everyone's needs to feel accepted. The unselfish thing to do was to be the person God created me to be, to serve him and people, to speak the truth, even when the truth wasn't going to make me popular.

If you're picking your best friend based on what kind of clothes she wears or how popular she is, chances are you aren't going to stay in touch after graduation.

I want to speak up and tell you that mascara and clothes don't make you cool, neither do name-brand handbags, but being a leader can.

Yes, we might've had our problems, but if you were that unhappy, then you should've left me. You don't seek solace in the arms of another man. You don't go to the other side, hoping the grass is greener. You water the lawn you have!

What "value" is taught when school administrators thumb their noses at the highest court in the land and continue illegal practices?

You're such a cheater. The best wood in your golf bag is your pencil!

No man should tell a lie unless he is shrewd enough to recognize the time for renouncing it, if and when it comes, and knows how to renounce it gracefully.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner: [trying to goad Wolfe] I thought you were afraid of nobody and nothing. Nero Wolfe: [unruffled] I can dodge folly without backing into fear.

Courtesy is one's own affair, but decency is a debt to life

I wouldn't use physical violence even if I could, because one of my romantic ideas is that physical violence is beneath the dignity of a man, and that whatever you get by physical aggression costs more than it is worth.

As sure as my name is Archie and not Archibald, I would have shot that goddamn orangutan dead in his tracks.

Wolfe grunted. "That's admirably specious, but drop it. I give you my word that I haven't the faintest notion of who killed Ellen Tenzer." Cramer eyed him. "Your word?" "Yes, sir.

Well." Wolfe was judicious. "You were not under oath. The police have been lied to informally many times by many people, including me. The right to lie in the service of your own interests is highly valued and frequently exercised.

He lowered the magazine. "Archie. You may remember that I once returned a retainer of forty thousand dollars which a client named Zimmermann had paid me, because he wanted to tell me how to handle his case instead of leaving it to me. Well?" He lifted the magazine. He lowered it again. "Please type the report." He lifted it again.

Courtesy is one's own affair, but decency is a debt to life. You

Nothing is quite so uncomfortable as a loose conscience.

Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book; the myriad temptations are overpowering. I wouldn't presume—

Don't overdo it. There are numerous layers of honesty, and the deepest should not have a monopoly.