Thomas Paine Quotes

Integrity, the choice between what's convenient and what's right.

I have a pretty keen ethical compass.

It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right.

Remember that what's right isn't always popular, and what's popular isn't always right.

If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.

You know, there's a right and wrong way to do everything.

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

Better to fail at doing the right thing than to succeed at doing the wrong thing.

In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.

The imperative is to define what is right and do it.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

I have only ever followed my conscience.

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

It's Not sacrifice if it's someone else's life you're giving away, it's just evil.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

Lord, give me the wisdom to know what's right and the courage to do what's right-even when it's hard.

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

Fundamentally, the force that rules the world is conduct, whether it be moral or immoral. If it is moral, at least there may be hope for the world. If immoral, there is not only no hope, but no prospect of anything but destruction of all that has been accomplished during the last 5,000 years.

Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.

I prefer to do right and get no thanks than to do wrong and receive no punishment.

No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression.

Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.

Integrity is never painless.

Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.

Throughout my life, I have always tried to do what is right.