I live my life with a lot of integrity based on what I want for my life and who I am.
Independence .... is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.
A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.
Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning.
A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.
What the world needs is people with integrity, people with genuine thoughts and intentions.
My dad's era believed that there was something noble in being a good guy - the kind of guy that lived straight and narrow, told the truth, and stood up for what he believed was right.
I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.
He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.
Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
There must be a priority of values in all our lives.
I live my life by certain standards.
Our behavior is governed by principles. Living in harmony with them brings positive consequences; violating them brings negative consequences.
Live with honor and follow your conscience.
The true determining factor of our belief system is not what we're saying, but how we are living.
Man can learn self-discipline without becoming ascetic; he can be wise without waiting to be old; he can be influential without waiting for status. Man can sharpen his ability to distinguish between matters of principle and matters of preference, but only if we have a wise interplay between time and truth, between minutes and morality.
Wisdom is always connected to beauty. When you see someone acting by their principles, their wisdom makes them beautiful.
Wealth is good, and if it comes our way we will take it; but a gentleman does not sell himself for wealth.
True freedom is where an individual's thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honor - no matter the personal price.
. . . Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed . . . so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.
If you going to live by a certain code - as Bob Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody.
I seek no values by means of evil, nor do I surrender my values to evil.
If, on a full and final review, my life and practice shall be found unworthy of my principles, let due infamy be heaped on my memory; but let none be led thereby to distrust the principles to which I proved recreant, nor yet the ability of some to adorn them by a suitable life and conversation. To unerring time be all this committed.
