"Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

" Aristotle

"A liar needs a good memory." Quintillian

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson Rasselas, ch. 41

"What is left when honor is lost?" Publilius Syrus First Century BC, Maxim 265

"No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to." Seneca Roman philosopher and writer 4 BCE - 65 CE

"So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge." Cicero

"We need to stress that personal integrity is as important as executive skill in business dealings....Setting an example from the top has a ripple effect throughout a business school or a corporation. After nearly three decades in business, 10 years as chief executive of a Big Eight accounting firm, I have learned that the standards set at the top filter throughout a company....[Quoting Professor Thomas Dunfee of the Wharton School:] ' A company that fails to take steps to produce a climate conducive to positive work-related ethical attitudes may create a vacuum in which employees so predisposed may foster a frontier-style, everyone for themselves mentality.' " Russell E. Palmer

"Don't measure your neighbor's honesty by your own." American Proverb

"If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and damn the consequences." Lord Milner

"Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollity; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas." Benjamin Franklin

"The right type of [leader] is democratic. He must not consider himself a superior sort of personage. He must actually feel democratic; it is not enough that he try to pose as democratiche must be democratic, otherwise the veneer, the sheen, would wear off, for you can't fool a body of intelligent American workingmen for very long. He must ring true." Thomas Coleman Du Pont

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

"As religion and faith are being driven out of the public square, the Judeo-Christian ethical foundations that have sustained our country since its beginning, are being lost and are being replaced with a humanistic amorality, a self-centered, pragmatic indifference that will ensure that our moral compasses will fail to point us in the right direction in the future." Archie B. Carroll Professor of Management, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia

"In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you." Warren Buffet CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." Edward R. Murrow

"If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless." Moliere [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] Tartuffe, V, i (1622-1673)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln

"The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is by trusting him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust." Henry L. Stimson Former U.S. Secretary of State

"A great man is always willing to be little." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is our hypocrisy and self-focus that drains us. When we become purpose centered, internally directed other focused and externally open, we discover energy we didnt know we had." Robert E. Quinn

"The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them." Camillo Benso di Cavour

"When greeted upon his return to power by cries of 'Algrie Franaise!' [De Gaulle] answered his countrymen, 'Je vous ai compris' (I have understood you). Indeed he had. But he did not say he would keep Algeria French. No leader can lie, or condone official lying, without turning totalitarian. But he may, and often must, tell what one political scientist call 'the truth, the partial truth, and nothing but the truth.' " Brock Brower

"It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Trust is rebuilt by focusing not on what the other person did or did not do but on critiquing one'sown behavior, improving one's trustworthiness, and focusing attention not on words and promises but on actions, attitudes, and ways of being." Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith The Art of Waking People Up

"He is not wise to me who is wise in words only, but he who is wise in deeds."

 St. Gregory

"What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you." Lyndon B. Johnson

"Be a terror to the butchers, that they may be fair in their weight; and keep hucksters and fraudulent dealers in awe, for the same reason." Cervantes

"You have the right to remain silent, but you can never, repeat, never lie or shade the truth." Robert L. Woodrum

"Though negotiations are a rough game, you should never allow them to become a dirty game. Once you've agreed to a deal, don't back out of it unless the other party fails to deliver as promised. Your handshake is your bond. As far as I'm concerned, a handshake is worth more than a signed contract. As an entrepreneur, a reputation for integrity is your most valuable commodity. If you try to put something over on someone, it will come back to haunt you." Victor Kiam

"Neither shall you allege the example of the many as an excuse for doing wrong." God Exodus 23:2

"Re-examine all that you have been told . . . dismiss that which insults your soul." Walt Whitman

"Power is actualized only when word and deed have not parted company." Hannah Arendt

"A person who is fundamentally honest doesn't need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical code anybody needs." Harry S. Truman

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." Albert Einstein

"There are seven things that will destroy us: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Religion without sacrifice; Politics without principle; Science without humanity; Business without ethics." Mahatma Gandhi

"It is the mark of the cultured man that he is aware of the fact that equality is an ethical and not a biological principle." Ashley Montagu

"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." Alexander Solzehnitsyn

"Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right, decide on what you think is right and stick to it." George Eliot

"As a leader, you have to not only do the right thing, but be perceived to be doing the right thing. A consequence of seeking a leadership position is being put under intense public scrutiny, being held to high standards, and enhancing a reputation that is constantly under threat." Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward Firing Back "Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say youre going to do. Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions." Maria Razumich-Zec

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

"I am different from [George] Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't."

 Mark Twain