Ken Follett Quotes

If I had walked into a dry cleaning store, and I had looked over, and the register drawer was open with money inside, I wouldn't have taken it.

Who, under pressing temptations to lie, adheres to truth, nor to the profane betrays aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit of wisdom and virtue.

If I have one wish which is greater than another, it is, if I had the power, to make men do right; to make them stop their swearing, their lying, their deceiving, to stop trying to injure the innocent, and begin to be honest and upright in all their dealings with one another and honor the name of the Deity.

Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.

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

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right.

Plato said that virtue has no master. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.

You can't have integrity for breakfast, but try and keep it because it is perhaps the single most important word that defines not just writers but all human beings.

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

I did not use paint, I made myself up morally.

It is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

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.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.