#Integrity Quotes

“Do not cast away an honest man for a villain's accusation.”

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

“Free from gross passion or of mirth of anger constant spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.”

“He was ever precise in promise-keeping.”

“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, For I am armed so strong in honesty That they pass by me as the idle wind”

“His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!”

“For I can raise no money by vile means. By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas”

“I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath; Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.”

“Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from th' entire point.”

“Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.”

“Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues.”

“For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.”

“His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.”

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

“Men that hazard allDo it in hope of fair advantages:A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.”

“The good I stand on is my truth and honesty.”

“That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.”

“In a false quarrel there is no true valor.”

“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”

“O, this life Is nobler than attending for a check, Richer than doing nothing for a robe, Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk: Such pain the cap of him that makes him fine Yet keeps his book uncrossed.”

“A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.”

“Under the colour of commending him I have access my own love to prefer; But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.”

“Why should honor outlive honestly? Orthello”

“A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a threadball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains on the thrower”

“The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong is what is against it.”

“Where I could not be honest,I never yet was valiant.”

“I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

“Promising is the very air o' th' time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.”

“By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers! but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.”

“The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life,in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.”

“I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.”

“When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.”

“Don't make a novel to establish a principle of political economy. You will spoil both.”

“All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished-by fear...be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.”

“I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity.”

“Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the eclat in the universe. This reality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art.”

“A little integrity is better than any career.”

“If we suddenly plant our foot, and say, - I will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor touch any food or fabric which I do not know to be innocent, or deal with any person whose whole manner of life is not clear and rational, we shall stand still. Whose is so? Not mine; not thine; not his. But I think we must clear ourselves each one by the interrogation, whether we have earned our bread to-day by the hearty contribution of our energies to the common benefit? and we must not cease to tend to the correction of these flagrant wrongs, by laying one stone aright every day.”

“The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.”

“Character repudiates intellect, yet excites it; and character passes into thought, is published so, and then is ashamed before newflashes of moral worth.”

“How can he [today's writer] be honored, when he does not honor himself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public.”

“Wherever the truth is injured, defend it.”

“The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness.”

“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”

“The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.”

“Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend.”

“Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.”

“The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work-declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life, nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line and say that society can never prosper but must always be bankrupts, until every man does that which he was created to do.”

“A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.”