Orison Swett Marden Quotes

I have a clean conscience and ideals that I am willing to defend.

The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.

There are only two things worth aiming for, good music and a clean conscience.

There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.

It's a full time job - trying to be at peace in my life, trying to be a better person and be best in every way I can be, be a good brother, be a good actor and a good human being.

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one's identity, in the many ways in which such violation is possible.

It is a good idea to be ambitious, to have goals, to want to be good at what you do, but it is a terrible mistake to let drive and ambition get in the way of treating people with kindness and decency. The point is not that they will then be nice to you. It is that you will feel better about yourself.

The glory of the good is in their consciences, and not in the tongues of men.

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned-that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character-that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind.

The heart and soul of loving yourself is integrity and the peace of conscience it inspires.

Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

We are too apt to love praise, but not to deserve it.

Don't try to be spiritual. That is only a word in the dictionary. Make it your goal to become a normally functioning individual. Let these principles shape you according to your real nature of a simple, decent, honest, unafraid human being.

A gentleman, is a rarer thing than some of us think for. Which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant and elevated; who can look the world honestly in the face, with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper, and each make out his list.

Be thou good thyself, and let people speak evil of thee; it is better than to be wicked, and that they should consider thee as good.

I've always been proud of my character and how I live my life. So my regrets are few, and the ones I do have, I'm glad I have.

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

Your honesty, Your love, Your compassion should come from your inner being, not from teachings and scriptures.

A life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth.

And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.

Honesty is telling the truth to ourselves and others. Integrity is living that truth.

Integrity is honesty carried through the fibres of the being and the whole mind, into thought as well as action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential to leadership.

Nothing speaks louder or more powerfully than a life of integrity