Dalai Lama Quotes

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

It is not true that people of high principle are ill-suited for politics.

I have a pretty keen ethical compass.

Democracy needs a moral compass.

Morality must guide calculation, and calculation must guide politics.

Do what's right and you'll please some of the people and astound the rest.

You can't be right by doing wrong; you can't be wrong by doing right.

Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality.

Judgment without character is expediency... or worse.

Integrity is never painless.

I do not believe in a political strategy that does not have a moral foundation.

Leadership is not manifested by coercion, even against the resented. Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

The government may be made up of clever, sensible people. But if they do not believe in basic human values, the more clever or shrewd they are the greater the tragedy they will create.

If I'm elected, at the end of four years or eight years I hope the people will say, "You know, Jimmy Carter made a lot of mistakes, but he never told a lie."

Bad principles are not good substitutes for no principles. For to eight years of bad principles may make no principles look pretty good.

Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice.

My integrity is something I hold dear.

You have to make your choices however you see fit and just keep your integrity as best you can.

I will never cheat in any walk of life.

The only thing you have in your life is your integrity.

I have only ever followed my conscience.

What are the values that give meaning? What is the line that you will never cross, because on this side you're good, and on this side you're evil.