John Ciardi Quotes

The just man walks in his integrity

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

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.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

Character is that quality of mind which makes truth-telling instinctive rather than strange.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

My pet peeve and my goal in life is to somehow get an adjective for 'integrity' in the dictionary. 'Truthful' doesn't really cover it, or 'genuine.' It should be like 'integritus.'

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing.

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

I consider nothing low but ignorance, vice, and meanness, characteristics generally found where the animal propensities predominate over the higher sentiments.

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

Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.

Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences.

There is no praise in being upright, where no one can, or tries to corrupt you.

Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.

God grant to all of us the power and strength to be people of integrity, and the insight and wisdom to avoid being led into the snares of the dishonest.

We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Even in decline, a virtuous man increases the beauty of his behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards.