Gordon B. Hinckley Quotes

Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.

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

What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.

I demand that every Storm Troop Leader, just as every political leader, should be conscious of the fact that his behavior and conduct must be exemplary. . . . I wish every mother to give her son to The Party without fearing that he may be ruined morally. . . . Storm Troop Leaders who behave unworthily in public are to be mercilessly removed.

In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts.

Sometimes I am convinced there is nothing wrong with this country that couldn't be cured by the magical implantation of ethical standards on us all - leaders and followers. Until that becomes doable, the Center for Public Integrity is just about the best thing we have going for us.

Leaders can be moral-and they should be moral-without imposing their morality on others.

If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct.

Our world is very dishonest, and our leaders encourage dishonesty by setting bad examples - by lying, being corrupt, and using political sleight of hand to sustain power.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

Conduct is the grand test of character. Words are one great evidence of the condition of the heart.

If I'm not leading by example, then I'm not doing the right thing. And I want to always do the right thing.

This is the part of a great man, after he has maturely weighed all circumstances, to punish the guilty, to spare the many, and in every state of fortune not to depart from an upright, virtuous conduct.

We need moral leadership and courage in our world.

Govern thy Life and Thoughts, as if the whole World were to see the one, and read the other.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

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.

All things else being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives. In the long pull we only pray as well as we live.

Preachers say, "Do as I say, not as I do." But if a physician had the same disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing and he do quite another, could I believe him?

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing

Sometimes being a leader isn’t about winning. Sometimes it’s about doing what’s right, instead of what’s powerful.