127 Inspiring Quotes On Integrity

In a world where character often defines impact, integrity stands as a beacon that guides personal and professional journeys. It is the invisible thread that weaves through our actions, shaping who we are and how we are perceived. Whether it's in maintaining honesty, upholding ethical standards, or staying true to one's values amidst challenges, integrity is crucial in garnering trust and respect. Our carefully curated collection of 127 quotes on integrity celebrates the strength and virtue of those who choose to live truthfully and authentically. Let these words inspire you to reflect, act, and lead with unwavering honesty in every facet of life.

1. “If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.” - Gordon A. Eadie

2. “At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose *your* self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's. But in one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will never find until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy, out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your *I*.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

3. “He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

4. “It is not the repeated mistakes, the long succession of petty betrayals--though, God knows, they would give cause enough for anxiety and self-contempt--but the huge elementary mistake, the betrayal of that within me which is greater than I--in complacent adjustment to alien demands.” - Dag Hammarskjöld

5. “They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.” - Harper Lee

6. “My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.” - Alan Moore

7. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. “But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible....” - Lemony Snicket

9. “When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” - Lao Tzu

10. “The thought manifests the word;The word manifests the deed;The deed develops into habit;And habit hardens into character;So watch the thought and its ways with care,And let them spring forth from loveBorn out of compassion for all beings.As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.” - Dhammapada

11. “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.” - Lillian Hellman

12. “Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” - Spencer Johnson

13. “Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agised as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.” - Charlotte Brontë

14. “You are so afraid of losing your moral sense that you are not willing to take it through anything more dangerous than a mud-puddle. ” - Gertrude Stein

15. “No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.” - Henry Adams

16. “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.” - Abraham Lincoln

17. “Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” - Andre Gide

18. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

19. “It's not a man's working hours that is important, it is how he spends his leisure time.” - Marilynne Robinson

20. “Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking of existence.” - Ayn Rand

21. “The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” - Marcus Garvey

22. “Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him.” - Omar Bradley

23. “A good name is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost.” - J. Hawes

24. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” - Marcus Aurelius

25. “He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion because there was something which he valued more than himself. The Truth. To recognize and to acknowledge What Is. That was the thing which man could do, which his English could do, his beloved, his sleeping, his now defenceless English. They might be stupid, ferocious, unpolitical, almost hopeless. But here and there, oh so seldome, oh so rare, oh so glorious, there were those all the same who would face the rack, the executioner, and even utter extinction, in the cause of something greater than themselves. Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate's. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years. They did not have to be right about their truth, as Galileo was to be. It was enough that they, the few and martyred, should establish a greatness, a thing above the sum of all they ignorantly had.” - T.H. White

26. “You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.' For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions, and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting what manner of man he is.” - Epictetus

27. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” - Warren Buffett

28. “If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.” - Marcus Aurelius

29. “I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.” - Henry James

30. “We should not allow our personal values to erode, even if others think we are peculiar.” - James E. Faust

31. “Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset.” - John D. MacDonald

32. “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.” - Samuel Johnson

33. “It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.” - Herman Melville

34. “A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.” - Ayn Rand

35. “Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.” - Ayn Rand

36. “There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity” - Tom Peters

37. “Do not make loose promises. But, when you make a promise, keep it. Be true to yourself. Be dependable. Whatever you have to do, do it the very best you can. It is not the fuss and feathers that count; it is the hard, steady effort that makes the grade.--SP 64 (SP is Studies in Priesthood, European Mission, 1930)” - John A. Widtsoe

38. “Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving.” - James E. Faust

39. “I've heard it said of faith that first we jump, and then we grow wings. Integrity is like that too, I think. That's what you have to gain. The sacrifice turns into a gift that is priceless.” - Matt Baldwin

40. “If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.” - Joe Biden

41. “Love does not cost anything. Kind words and deeds do not cost anything. The real beauty of the world is equal for everyone to see. It was given by God equally to all, without restrictions. Everyone, was given a beautiful vehicle in which to express love to others. Feelings are free to express and give to ourselves and each other through our willingness to give and care. What is complicated about this... Why have we made others feel they have to climb mountains and swim oceans in order to make a difference. All we need to understand my friends, is that human life was given equally to us all, not partially but in totality. The sun was given to all. It does not shine on the few. So, just has nature is indifferent to our station or situation, we need to know that we are all equal. We need to focus on the things that are constant and not place our values on things that can be blown away with the next, great, wind.Value life in what ever house it dwells. For when it comes time that we are all stripped to bare bones before the divine and facing eternity, we will understand that the only law we were meant to follow, was to love ourselves and each other. Nothing more...nothing less.” - Carla Jo Masterson

42. “Unless today is well lived, tomorrow is not important.” - Alan Sakowitz

43. “The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity.For this reason, he has integrity.The person of inferior integritynever loses sight of his integrity;For this reason, he lacks integrity.” - Lao Tzu

44. “Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.” - Michel de Montaigne

45. “Settling other people's land is an American tradition.” - Ariel Gore

46. “...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.""...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.” - George R.R. Martin

47. “The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones.” - Cheryl Hughes

48. “When people cheat in any arena, they diminish themselves-they threaten their own self-esteem and their relationships with others by undermining the trust they have in their ability to succeed and in their ability to be true.” - Cheryl Hughes

49. “I am an average good Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the same as I am.” - Wilkie Collins

50. “Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.” - Jane Austen

51. “Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.” - Leonardo da Vinci

52. “How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.” - Marcus Aurelius

53. “The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.” - E.M. Forster

54. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” - Charlotte Brontë

55. “In the end you should always do the right thing even if it's hard.” - Nicholas Sparks

56. “Rise early and seize each day, learn much and use this knowledge well, spend time with those you love, never abuse your pets, use logic to fight the irrational (for it is everywhere), defend the environment and its wildlife as a knight would protect King Arthur, meld mind and heart for greatest creativity, follow your dreams, and become all that you can be.” - Charles Kohlhase

57. “Never offer advice just to appear concerned.” - Jack Gardner

58. “Her strength was in the integrity of her actions; she never compromised what she believed she ought to do.” - Charles Finch

59. “Cavenaugh rubbed his hands together and smiled his sunny smile.'I like that idea. It's reassuring. If we can have no secrets, it means we can't, after all, go so far afield as we might,' he hesitated, 'yes, as we might.'Eastman looked at him sourly. 'Cavenaugh, when you've practiced law in New York for twelve years, you find that people can't go far in any direction, except-' He thrust his forefinger sharply at the floor.'Even in that direction, few people can do anything out of the ordinary. Our range is limited. Skip a few baths, and we become personally objectionable. The slightest carelessness can rot a man's integrity or give him ptomaine poisoning. We keep up only be incessant cleansing operations, of mind and body. What we call character, is held together by all sorts of tacks and strings and glue. ("Consequences")” - Willa Cather

60. “I know that what you call 'God' really exists, but not in the form you think; God is primal cosmic energy, the love in your body, your integrity, and your perception of the nature in you and outside of you.” - Wilhelm Reich

61. “Never do anything that you can't admit doing, because if you are that ashamed of whatever it is, it's probably wrong.” - Ashly Lorenzana

62. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” - Abraham Lincoln

63. “Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

64. “The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

65. “You'd think (losing his job and degree for having made false claims as a researcher) would be a lesson to him," said Miss Hillyard. "It didn't pay, did it? Say he sacrificed his professional honour for the women and children we hear so much about -- but in the end it left him worse of."But that," said Peter, "was only because he committed the extra sin of being found out.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

66. “Good men don't become legends," he said quietly."Good men don't need to become legends." She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "They just do what's right anyway.” - Brandon Sanderson

67. “...Regardless, I still do not believe that your duty is to do as the people wish. Your duty is to lead as best you can, following the dictates of your conscience. You must be true. Your Majesty, to the man you wish to become....” - Brandon Sanderson

68. “May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

69. “The decent, strong person had to do decent, strong things like love unlovable people and keep peace even when it wasn't easy.” - Mary Connealy

70. “Before speaking, consult your inner-truth barometer, and resist the temptation to tell people only what they want to hear.” - Wayne W. Dyer

71. “Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip. ” - Will Rogers

72. “She taught me I should never do anything in private I did not want talked about in public, and cautioned me not to talk in my sleep.” - Patrick Rothfuss

73. “Our lives say much more about how we think than our books do. The theories we preach are not always the ones we actually believe. The theories we live are the ones we really believe.” - R.C. Sproul

74. “Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature,that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so securestranquility.” - Marcus Aurelius

75. “You know what guys do? They stand up for people.” - David Lubar

76. “Most Christians seem to have two kinds of lives, their so-called real life and their so-called religious one. Not (C. S.) Lewis. The barrier so many of us find between the visible and the invisible world was just not there for him. It had become natural for Lewis to live ordinary life in a supernatural way.” - Walter Hooper

77. “Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.” - Alexandre Dumas

78. “Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by,and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.” - J.C. Watts Jr.

79. “Your words will either give you joy or give you sorrow, but if they were spoken without regret, they give you peace.” - Shannon Alder

80. “Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.” - Shannon L. Alder

81. “Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny.” - Heraclitus

82. “Honor is no phantom. Duty doesn't melt away, no matter how much we might wish it to.” - Claudia J. Edwards

83. “When all is said and done all anyone has left is their integrity at their core... Don't give that away too.” - Solange nicole

84. “To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)” - Dorothy L. Sayers

85. “The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)” - Dorothy L. Sayers

86. “Friendship is thinking of the other person first.” - George Alexiou

87. “Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.” - Elizabeth Goudge

88. “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

89. “Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.” - Henry Royce

90. “If Jesus were to ask me, as He did that poor demoniac in the Gospel: "What is your name?" I too would have to reply: "My name is legion, for there are many of us" (Mk 5:9). There are as many of us as there are desires, plans and regrets which we harbor, each one different from and contrary to others which pull us in opposite directions. They literally dis-tract us, drag us apart.” - Raniero Cantalamessa

91. “There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?""Are you a young lady?""I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.” - Charlotte Brontë

92. “I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last.” - Charlotte Brontë

93. “So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge.” - Sharon Shinn

94. “[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist.” - Héloïse

95. “All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.” - Denis Diderot

96. “A few people of integrity can go a long way.” - Bill Kauth

97. “The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but actually it’s the most natural way to approach any situation. When you hold some part of yourself in reserve you deny it exposure to life; you repress its energy and keep it form understanding what it needs to know.” - Deepak Chopra

98. “God grant, if we must have two eyes, that they may be both clear ones, one the eye of faith wholly fixed on Christ, the other the eye of obedience equally and wholly fixed on the same objective!” - Charles H. Spurgeon

99. “I care not for the body which may rot. Yet, for the transgression of the spirit, of moral ethics, of life, liberty and the soul itself, I must and shall cross the line of battle or lose the very reason not to.” - The Great Pacifist

100. “The potential for loss of soul--to one degree or another--is the affliction of a society that as a collective has lost its sense of the holy, of a culture that values everything else above the spiritual. We live in such a spiritually impoverished culture--and in such a time. Loss of soul, to one degree or another, is a constant teasing possibility. We are invited at every corner to hedge on the truth, indulge outselves, act as if our words and actions have no ultimate consequence, make an absolute of the material world, and treat the spiritual world as if it were some kind of frothy, angelic fantasy. In such a world the soul struggles for survival; in such a world a man can lose his own soul and have the whole culture support him, and in such a world, conversely, the light of a single, great soul that lives in integrity can truly illumine the world.” - Daphne Rose Kingma

101. “Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.” - Erik H. Erikson

102. “Strength of character comes from being hit by stray verbal stones, while protecting discarded ciphers in the snow.” - Shannon L. Alder

103. “What do you think dignity's all about?'The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

104. “A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.” - Jacqueline Bisset

105. “Speak your truth with grace and integrity, even though it might upset some people. You never know who else, besides yourself, it might help.” - Leila Summers

106. “Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.” - John O'Donohue

107. “...Helen sipped peppermint schnapps and considered the world made of her design. My religion is keeping peace, she thought. It hadn't begun that way, was nothing she'd planned, but now she saw that's how it was. I just ran a grocery, she thought. I don't want this. I ain't the one to make the world right.” - Alan Heathcock

108. “One of the greatest disconnects for this generation is how life and work fit together. There is a need to talk about purpose in life, vocation, and calling. We need to provide a stronger theology of work to help them make integrated connections to their daily lives.” - David Kinnaman

109. “Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.” - Ayn Rand

110. “You are new here, so I will explain. In this land, nobility comes not from one’s fathers or a title or from the land one owns, but from one’s actions.” His voice was hard-edged, and his words seemed harsh to her. “The MacKinnon brothers are the highest nobility to those who live on the frontier—true warriors, men who know how to fight and survive, men who put the lives of others before their own. Your family’s wealth, your title, your virtue—they mean nothing out here. They won’t fill your belly, and they won’t keep you alive. What matters most right now is your survival. (Joseph to Lady Sarah)” - Pamela Clare

111. “But pecuniary interest is clearly not in your nature. How quaint. I have written about people who don't care for money, but I never expected to meet one. Therefor I conclude that the difficulty concerns integrity. People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appauling obsession with personal integrity." - Vida Winter” - Diane Setterfield

112. “Every coach, every executive, every leader: They all know right from wrong. Even those Enron guys. When someone uncovers a scandal in their company, I don't think they can say, "I didn't know that was going on." They're just saying they're too dumb to do their job! And if they really are too dumb, then why are they getting paid millions of dollars to do it? They know what's going on.” - Bo Schembechler

113. “Encourage literally came from "in courage." The courage is put "into" you from outside. Our character and abilities grow through internalizing from others what we do not possess in ourselves.” - Dr. Henry Cloud

114. “[O]ne can scarcely be frightened off writing what one wants to write for fear an obscure reviewer should patronise one on that account.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

115. “Everyone makes mistakes, but only a person with integrity owns up to them.” - Nicole Guillaume

116. “We continuously enhance our knowledge base be it latest in technology, market scenario or customer requirements.” - UAE Exchange

117. “I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.” - Eckhart Tolle

118. “The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” - C.S. Lewis

119. “Don’t force your gifts: if you are a rascal, live like one; if you are half honest, be half honest; if you are completely honest, live absolutely honestly.” - Pierre Ceresole

120. “Wisdom is knowing the right path to take. Integrity is taking it.” - M.H. McKee

121. “Truth and integrity must be so rare these days that it confuses people when they hear it.” - Donna Lynn Hope

122. “The man of integrity who is true to self and to God will choose the right whether or not anyone is looking because he is self-driven, not externally controlled.” - Tad R. Callister

123. “Kindness is a currency that can cover a multitude of interpersonal debts.” - George Alexiou

124. “Happiness has no time limits or conditions; the only requirement is to give it away.” - George Alexiou

125. “Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It’s hard sometimes.” - Terry Tempest Williams

126. “Art gives its vision to beauty not always recognized. And it surrenders freely -- whatever power it possesses to every sincere soul that seeks it. But above all else--it presents us with the gift of ourselves.” - Aberjhani

127. “Love – Acceptance – Unity – Peace –Integrity – Respect… a strong, pure creed is short on words and long on nourishing ideas. For me, the longer the creed the more it has been diluted, manipulated, and spoiled. The results of this creed poisoning can be seen in the behavior of its followers. We have all heard the expression, “The devil is in the details”; my observations have led me to suspect this is true.” - Steve Maraboli