Noah Webster Quotes

If you're blessed enough to serve in public office, then you shouldn't just talk a good game about your values; you should cast your vote according to them.

I'm looking for the best person irregardless of political party, of race or religion, or color of their skin. Those things don't matter to me. I want someone who's qualified, who has a qualification to character and the integrity to do the things that have to be done to save this world.

To say America can have strong leadership without strong character is to say we can get water without the wet.

As a general rule, it may be affirmed that the man who never intrigues for office may be most safely entrusted with office...Such a man cannot desire promotion unless he received it from the respectable part of the community, for he considers no other promotion to be honorable.

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

I have not the smarts or patience for political office.

Eric Holder is a decent man.

Voters in 1960 elected the first Catholic president. In 2012, I voted to reelect the first African American president. Each was a vote for a man of principle and character, for a man who had proved himself capable and courageous and who would lead our country with a combination of dignity, compassion and toughness along a path of progress.

Rules cannot take the place of character.

It isn't polls or public opinion at the moment that counts. It is right and wrong and leadership--men with fortitude, honesty, and a belief in the right that makes epochs in the history of the world.

All men who have moved the world have been men who would stand true to their conscience.

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

Integrity is a life where your beliefs and intentions are aligned with your words and actions.

There is a true glory and a true honor: the glory of duty done--the honor of the integrity of principle.

If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being a good poet without first being a good man.

A gentleman does not promote a man on account of what he says; nor does he reject sayings, because the speaker is what he is.

The only equitable manner in my opinion, of judging the character of a man is to examine if there are personal calculations in his conduct; if there are not, we may blame his manner of judging, but we are not the less bound to esteem him.

A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States.

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character.

A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.

The public wants elected officials who have character. The public wants elected officials who are willing to stand up and say things, even if they don't agree with them.

Possessed of courage but devoid of morality, a superior man will make trouble while a small man will be a brigand.

Honor is the moral conscience of the great.

Magnanimity is above circumstance; and any virtue which depends on that is more of constitution than of principle.