Charles E. Schumer Quotes

If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.

I've always said there is a boulevard that exists between compromising your principles and getting everything you want. Now, we should never compromise our principles. And I never have. Those are the things that people vote for you on, that's the core of who you are. But there's always a boulevard between that and getting everything you want.

You don't have to sacrifice who you are to follow your beliefs.

No matter what is the environment around you, it is always possible to maintain your brand of integrity

Don't compromise your principles.

Don't pretend that you can just be oblivious to politics. You can't. What you never do is break your personal code. Have a code and keep it. You should never compromise what your priorities are.

Never compromise a principle or relinquish a vital truth.

There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life.

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.

I wouldn't back away from what's right just because it's hard.

My father said, Politics asks the question: Is it expedient? Vanity asks: Is it popular? But conscience asks: Is it right?

I'd say that individuals are respected who stick to their convictions instead of doing whatever happens to be in fashion.

Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts.

The true gentleman does not preach what he practices till he has practiced what he preaches.

We create an environment where it is alright to hate, to steal, to cheat, and to lie if we dress it up with symbols of respectability, dignity and love.

And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.

Be not dishearten'd -- Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible.

Integrity is honesty carried through the fibres of the being and the whole mind, into thought as well as action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential to leadership.

A man who sells his conscience for his interest will sell it for his pleasure. A man who will betray his country will betray his friend.

Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.

Don't give up on your ideals. Don't compromise. Don't turn to expediency. And for heaven's sake . . . don't get cynical.

If you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because then there is no taking care on your part.

Anyone who wants to be truly free must be willing to stand alone in the truth.