Integrity Quotes - Page 28

• Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only integral experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than I feel.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Commitment, Vision, Never Quit

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.359, Penguin

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• A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Long

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.105, Penguin

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• I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a hindrance. However flattering order and expediency may look, it is but the repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves on this earth, and in this life, as we may, without signing our death-warrant. Let us see if we cannot stay here, where He has put us, on his own conditions. Does not his law reach as far as his light? The expedients of the nations clash with one another: only the absolutely right is expedient for all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Light, Order, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers”

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• To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there is a still greater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent acts may be a matter for secrecy, but whatever we do with the utmost truthfulness and integrity, by virtue of its pureness, must be transparent as light.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Light, Secret

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.222, Xist Publishing

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• A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Honesty, Men, Appreciate

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.688, Simon and Schuster

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• We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings today?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Bravery, What If, Church

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.85, Xist Publishing

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• It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Men, Odds

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I expect a time when, or rather an integrity by which, a man will get his coat as honestly and as perfectly fitting as a tree itsbark. Now our garments are typical of our conformity to the ways of the world, i.e., of the devil, and to some extent react on us and poison us, like that shirt which Hercules put on.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Tree, Independence

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.179, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Every man should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Power, Men, Should

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.133, Jazzybee Verlag

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• For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Responsibility, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

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• Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Thinking, Upright Man

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1225, Delphi Classics

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• Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen; his labor would be depreciated in the market.
  He has no time to be anything but a machine.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Would Be, Machines

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.12

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• What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Men, President

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.276, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving, Needs, Dinner

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.92, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Clothes, Want, Gods Will

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nails, Machines, Carrying On

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.193, Graphic Arts Books

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• A man should give us a sense of mass.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Giving, Should

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.197, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity. All men, all things, the state, the church, yea the friends of the heart are phantasms and unreal beside the sanctuary of the heart. With so much awe, with so much fear, let it be respected.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Men, Church

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.258

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• It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits.He is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a cripple.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Distance, Men, Society

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.391, Modern Library

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• Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, aman of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Men, Thinking

  "Wealth". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860.

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• The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Eye, Acceptance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.238

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• To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Believe, Evil, Firsts

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• [O]ur greatest contributions to the cause of freedom and development overseas is not what we do over there, but what we do right here at home.

  Frances Moore Lappé

  Freedom, Home, Character

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• Liberty, like chastity, once lost, can never be regained in its original purity.

  Josh Billings

  Humor, Liberty, Purity

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• Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in everycountry, but in England they are national characteristics.

  E. M. Forster

  Character, Class, Imagination

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