Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

Ethics and power are separate.

A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.

I have always reckoned the dignity of the republic of first importance and preferable to life.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.

I can’t very well be teaching one way and living my life another way. What I do in life must be consistent with the things I say. And the same goes for you.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

I always invest my own money in the companies that I create. I don’t believe in the whole thing of just using other people’s money. I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to ask other people to invest in something if I’m not prepared to do so myself.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

You cannot mix sports with politics.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

The spirit of America has nurtured responsibility and community unlike any other country.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

When you stand for something, you’ve got to stand for it all the way, not half way.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

A gentleman would be ashamed should his deeds not match his words.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

I deserve respect for the things I did not do.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

As a former resident with strong personal and ministry ties to the North Star State, I pray that the good people of Minnesota will show their support for God’s definition of marriage, between a man and a woman.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.