Confucius Quotes

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage.

What is character? It is that quality of man which is going to make a man, in an hour of strain, do the just and, if possible, the generous thing.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.

Principle is ever my motto, not expediency.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Leadership is about doing what you know is right - even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.

A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.

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

I'm always inspired by people who choose to do what is right, not what is easy.

Life comes down to honesty and doing what's right. That's what's most important.

You just have to do what you know is right.

There are things you stand up for because it's right.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.

The greatest want of the world is the want of men - men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

The courage of New England was the courage of conscience.

...it's so hard to find men of a so high type of morals that they'll stay bought.

My philosophy is different than most of the people up here. I think if you do the right thing and you lose, you still did the right thing. I think if you do less than the right thing and win, it’s morally reprehensible.