Famous Quotes, Quotation and Sayings

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. ✍ Thomas Jefferson

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong. ✍ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Everyone complains of his memory, but no one complains of his judgment. ✍ Francois de La Rochefoucauld,

God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless. ✍ Chester W. Nimitz

I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to. ✍ Author Unknown

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. ✍ Henry Louis Mencken, "Sententiae,"

The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour. ✍ Japanese Proverb

For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse. ✍ Samuel Richardson

There is an ongoing battle between conscience and self-interest in which, at some point,we have to take sides. ✍ Robert Brault

I would rather be right than President. ✍ Henry Clay

If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral. ✍ Samuel P. Ginder

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. ✍ Noël Coward,

Goodness is beauty in the best estate. ✍ Christopher Marlowe

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart. ✍ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

If we were all to be judged by our thoughts, the hills would be swarming with outlaws. ✍ Johann Sigurjonsson

Righteousness is easy in retrospect. ✍ Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them. ✍ Elbert Hubbard,

I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can. ✍ Michel de Montaigne

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. ✍ Logan Pearsall Smith

I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top. ✍ Frank Moore Colby

It’s impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time. ✍ Mignon McLaughlin,

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows. ✍ Jean Baptiste Molière,

If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare. ✍ William Arnot

Conscience warns us before it reproaches us. ✍ Comtesse Diane (Marie Josephine de Suin de Beausacq),

If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. ✍ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don’t accept it. ✍ Pablo Casals

Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? ✍ Socrates

Every human being has… an attendant spirit…. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do. ✍ Lydia M. Child

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. ✍ Will Durant

Every man over forty is responsible for his face. ✍ Abraham Lincoln

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ✍ William Faulkner

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ✍ Michel de Montaigne,

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging? ✍ Mark Twain

God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t. ✍ Alfred Korzyybski

You must question a code of ethics that never impedes your progress. ✍ Robert Brault

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient. ✍ Bodie Thoene,

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. ✍ Mahatma Gandhi

[T]hough of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. ✍ Oscar Wilde,

A man may be born a jackass; but it is his business if he makes himself a double one. ✍ Martin H. Fischer

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. ✍ Ann Landers

Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them. ✍ Suzanne Necker

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts. ✍ Blaise Pascal,

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. ✍ Ambrose Bierce

There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character. ✍ Frederick W. Faber

If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable. ✍ Georges Courteline,

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self. ✍ Martin Luther

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ✍ Barry Lopez,

I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops. ✍ Oscar Wilde

You can’t learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ✍ Somerset Maugham

Reputation is character minus what you’ve been caught doing. ✍ Michael Iapoce,

I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back. ✍ Abraham Lincoln

In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men. ✍ Mary Renault

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. ✍ Mark Twain

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. ✍ Henry David Thoreau

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. ✍ Quoted in

The only guy I have to get better than is who I am right now. ✍ M*A*S*H

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. ✍ George Washington

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul. ✍ William Shakespeare

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. ✍ Norman Vincent Peale

Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to. ✍ Arnold H. Glasow

It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it. ✍ A.A. Hodge

Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls. ✍ Victor Hugo

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. ✍ Author Unknown

Do whatever you can to capture, or recapture, your life spark – unless it harms others, in which case suffer with as much happiness as you can muster. Your nobility of spirit will spark itself. ✍ Corri Alius

Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them. ✍ Robert Brault

I did not use paint, I made myself up morally. ✍ Eleanora Duse,

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. ✍ Abraham Lincoln

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. ✍ Mark Twain

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves – such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. ✍ Albert Einstein, "What I Believe,"

A healthy mind has an easy breath. ✍ Author Unknown

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. ✍ B.C. Forbes

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. ✍ Harper Lee,

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. ✍ Buddha

The time is always right to do what is right. ✍ Martin Luther King

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may. ✍ Mark Twain

‘Tis better to suffer wrong than do it. ✍ Thomas Fuller,

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. ✍ G.B. Shaw,

Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others. ✍ Henry Taylor

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. ✍ Thomas Paine

Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns! ✍ Allison Gappa Bottke

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. ✍ Léon Blum

I’ll tell you a big secret, my friend: Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day. ✍ Albert Camus,

If at first you don’t succeed, do it like your mother told you. ✍ Author Unknown

A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. ✍ Doug Larson

Take care that no one hates you justly. ✍ Publilius Syrus

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ✍ Mark Twain

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. ✍ Martin Luther King

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. ✍ William Lloyd Garrison

You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. ✍ Harriet Woods

Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. ✍ Nordstrom’s Employee Handbook

Have a very good reason for everything you do. ✍ Laurence Olivier