Principled Behavior Quotes

Some defeats are better than victories. A defeat endured as the result of contest conducted in a fair and honorable manner is a thousand times more creditable to the defeated party than a victory gained by all the mean and unscrupulous arts of the wire pullers.

My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.

Why do we universally admire and respect a Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Teresa, Lincoln, or any other leader or legend from history's pantheon? It is because they were guided by integrity-based practices. They stood for something. They didn't break with the values they believed in just because they faced struggle.

Integrity means you do what you do because it is right and not just fashionable or politically correct.

Integrity is congruence between what you know, what you profess, and what you do.

Do what you believe to be right, and ever hold it for a maxim, that if the skies fall through your doing right, honest men will survive the ruin.

I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand.

We can live our own lives in a way that does not bring reproach on the principles we claim to support.

The only concession you can make is to what you believe is right.

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

All ethical people strive to choose "right" over "easy" when confronted by situations that force them to choose one or the other.

Practice self-awareness, self-evaluation, and self-improvement. If we are aware that our manners - language, behavior, and actions - are measured against our values and principles, we are able to more easily embody the philosophy, leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.

Integrity means having the courage to do what is right, and what is aligned with your values, no matter the situation.

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

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.

Confounding people's expectations was a way to maintain integrity.

I think you can be conservative and fight for what you believe in without being mean-spirited or bash people or be ugly about it.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.

You have to have integrity.

When people are motivated by principles larger than themselves, you don't have to beat them over the head to get them to act. You simply empower them, you inform them, you give them tools, and they take it upon themselves to act.

I'm a process person. Process is a manifestation of values.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle.

I just think that you have to approach anything you do with a huge amount of integrity - I don't really care where it comes from, whether it's a children's piece or an adult piece.

I am really laid back and kind of go-with-the-flow, but I will never do anything that I don't believe in.