Integrity, Honesty and Virtue Quotes
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“Always stand on principle, even if you stand alone.” John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), 6th US President
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“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.” Benjamin Franklin
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“The greatest of fault, I should say, is to be conscious of none.” Robert Carlyle (1795-1881)
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“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.” Alfred Adler
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“A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.” Pierpoint Morgan
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“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance.” Henry Miller (1891-1980), The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941
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“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” John Locke
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“The injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scales.” Aesop, Fables
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“He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.” Thomas Fuller
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“Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the apathetic, throng the coward and the meek who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak.” Ralph Chaplin
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“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” George Washington
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“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.” William James
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“Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life.
We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.” Eugene V. Debs, 1908 speech
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“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.” C. L. De Montesquieu [Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat] (1689-1755), Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, VIII, 1752
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“Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live
their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” Tecumseh (1768-1813), Shawnee Chief
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“Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. In those transparent moments we know other people’s joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.” Fritz Williams
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“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” Dwight Eisenhower
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“It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.” Socrates (469-399 BC)
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“The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.” Jane Addams
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