No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.

For everything I do, I think about a 6-year-old girl and her mom that I saw at my concert last night. I think about what those two individuals would think if I were at a club last night. I never want to be arrested, and I never want to get a DUI, those are my moral values.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

Money can’t buy life.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

Selling out is doing something you don’t really want to do for money. That’s what selling out is.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what’s right. Freedom is right.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun.

I believe in the Golden Rule – The Man with the Gold… Rules.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.

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.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

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

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

More than anything else, I want the folks back at home to think right of me.

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst, and with continued unity of effort, we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States – that is, prosperity.

Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

It’s honestly true that money means nothing to me.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

I disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

I am not a crook.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.