Humphry Davy Quotes

In the end, your integrity is all you've got.

I consider a good reputation is a great part of the human happiness. Some people, if they are very, very rich can permit themselves certain negligence to their reputations.

Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation... Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.

If you have no character to lose, people will have no faith in you.

Honor, without money, is a mere malady.

The thing that must be preserved in all situations whatever is the reputation of one's character.

A just person knows how to secure his own reputation without blemishing another's by exposing his faults.

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets - and can be lost in a heartbeat.

If a person has built a sound character, it makes but little difference what people say about him, because he will win in the end.

Every man of character will have that character questioned. Every man of honor and courage will be faced with unjust criticism, but never forget that unjust criticism has no impact whatsoever upon the truth. And the only sure way to avoid criticism is to do nothing and be nothing.

A man cannot have character unless he lives within a fundamental system of morals that creates character.

I think you earn your reputation for honesty and integrity literally hour-by-hour, and taste for that matter.

The authority of example and considerations of character, unlike pudding, are not whipped up in an instant.

One's sense of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one's fellow men.

The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.

The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.

Honour is purchased by the deeds we do.

Not every great man is a grand human being.

For I consider the character of no man affected by a want of success, provided he has made an honest effort to succeed.

No one ever lost his honor, except he who had it not.

Your reputation is what people say about you. Your character is what God and your wife know about you.

Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.

He who possesses greatness is cruel towards his secondary virtues and considerations.

Tell a scoundrel, three or four times a day, that he is the pink of probity, and you make him at least the perfection of "respectability" in good earnest. On the other hand, accuse an honorable man, too petinaciously, of being a villain, and you fill him with a perverse ambition to show you that you are not altogether in the wrong.

There are no degrees in honorableness. You either are or you aren't.