Integrity quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership... Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause."
"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way."
"The supreme quality of leadership is integrity."
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."
"Look for 3 things in a person. Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity. If they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside integrity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
"Integrity gives you real freedom because you have nothing to fear since you have nothing to hide."
"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."
"Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."
"Do the right thing because it is right."
"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny ... it is the light that guides your way."
"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather....In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or is dehumanized."
"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."
"Serenity, regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality."
"Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics."
"World War II was fought for the abolition of racial exclusiveness, equality of nations and the integrity of their territories, liberation of enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights, the right of every nation to arrange its affairs as it wishes, economic aid to nations that have suffered and assistance to them in attaining their material welfare, restoration of democratic liberties, and destruction of the Hitlerite regime."
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
"You have to have a habitual vision of greatness ... you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity ... believe in fact that living is connected to giving."
"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud."
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."
"All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."
"It's not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity."
"Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations."
"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
