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.

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

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

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

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

I can hardly eat meat because it has to look like something what it was not when it was alive.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

If I made a commitment, I stood by that commitment – and try to make it real. Because when you become leaders, the most important thing you have is your word, your trust. That’s where respect comes from.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.

My mother would kill me if I posed nude! My mother raised me with certain standards.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

My parents taught me service – not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Character is expressed through our behavior patterns, or natural responses to things.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.

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.

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

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

All the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and so on, are summed up in this single command: You must love your neighbor as yourself.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

Every man’s reputation proceeds from those of his own household.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

True friends stab you in the front.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?