Our Centers for Ethics:

Quotations: Integrity, hypocrisy, identity

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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
— Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer (1709-1784)

In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.
— Warren Buffet, American financier (b. 1930)

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
— Oliver Goldsmith, English author (1728-1774)

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
— Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (1828-1910)

To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
— e e cummings, poet, artist, playwright and novelist (1894-1962)

Men's minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves.
— Titus Livius, Roman historian and philosopher (59 BC-AD 17)

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.
— William Shakespeare, English dramatist (1564-1616), from King Richard II

Do what you want to do...
But want to do what you are doing.
Be what you want to be...
But want to be what you are.
— Unknown

Speak what you feel, not what you ought to say.
— William Shakespeare, English dramatist (1564-1616), from King Lear

Once integrity goes, the rest is a piece of cake.
— J.R. Ewing, lead character in the 20th-century American television show Dallas

Know thyself.
— Inscription at the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece

Only the shallow know themselves.
— Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish wit and author (1854-1900)

We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent.
— Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish wit and author (1854-1900)

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.
— Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish wit and author (1854-1900)

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1880)

Be as you wish to seem.
— Socrates, Greek philosopher (c. 470-399 B.C.)

Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.
— Welsh proverb

Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, American stateswoman, First Lady (1884-1962)

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
— Andre Gide, French author (1869-1951)

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
— Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), American humorist, author and journalist (1835-1910)

Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path. . . a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do ... to find his path and walk in it.
— Thomas Carlyle, Anglo-Scottish historian, author (1795-1881)

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
— Carl Jung, Swiss founder of analytical psychology (1875-1961)

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are — not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within — that you begin to take control.
— Oprah Winfrey, American talk-show host and actor (b. 1954)

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
— Richard Wright, American author (1908-1960)

Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.
— Maxwell Maltz, 20th-century American psychologist and motivational writer

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.
— William Hazlitt, English essayist and literary critic (1778-1830)

What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German statesman, poet, novelist and dramatist (1749-1832)

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844-1900)

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