It is impossible to deny that dishonest men often grow rich and famous, becoming powerful in their parish or in parliament. Their portraits grace shop windows; and they live and die respected. This success is theirs; yet it is not the success which a noble soul will envy.
To achieve success wasn't to get into the major leagues or have the best season in the world. The best success is to live your life the way God wants you to.
If I conduct myself publicly and privately in a way that is honorable, not just to the people of the district that I represent but to God, then I will feel like I have been successful.
Honesty is incompatible with amassing a large fortune.
If you had to pick between being moral and successful, obviously I'd choose to be moral. However if you can choose both, will you choose both? I'd say definitely.
I am fully aware that everybody has a right to succeed, and success should be with ethics.
It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
Better to be the failure who nobly strived than the success who never really had to.
To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.
