Integrity & Honesty quotes for UPSC & State PCS

My life is my message.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

The deceiver is really the fool.

Saying is one thing, doing another.

... it's always best to tell the truth.

He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

Honest work is much better than a mansion.

A man should be upright, not kept upright.

Look for integrity, intelligence and energy.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

The best of us would rather be popular than right.

... scandals are only increased by hushing them up.

I die the king's faithful servant, and God's first.

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.

Liars ... when they speak the truth they are not believed.

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

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

Honorable things, not secretive things, are sought by good men.

Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.

I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

But he couldn't lie if you paid him and he'd starve before he stole.

He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

While both are dear, Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.

Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.

Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening.

The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome.

The last characteristic of parrhesia... telling the truth is regarded as a duty.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

I am not suited to the palace, for I have self-respect and do not know how to flatter.

The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.

It is not the same thing. You are perhaps not lying, but you are not telling the truth.

We don’t need any more promises. We need to start keeping the promises we already made.

Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth. (531)

The only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

There is no substitute for honesty... there is NO HOPE for the person who is dishonest...

To get wealth and security by guile Is like one who pours water into a pot of unbaked clay.

If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.

If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it. For let thy efforts be —

I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.

Truth and Virtue do not necessarily belong to wealth and Power and Distinctions of Big Mansions.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

I have always been of the opinion that infamy earned by doing what is right is not infamy at all, but glory.

I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.

Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.

Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.

Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

I would … rather lose in a cause that I know some day will triumph than triumph in a cause that I know some day will lose.

I can say in all humility that I have not used my public office to enrich myself, enrich my family or to enrich my friends.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

This was one of the heaviest blows I can recall during the war....It was a bitter moment. Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another.

The CPSU again demonstrates that the most important aspect of self-criticism is to practically and effectively correct one's errors.

He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

So, our honest politicians and our honorable corporation heads owe it to their reputations to bring their activities out into the open.

I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.

The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't. (Hays translation)

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.

It would be better for me … that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

Anything can happen someday, even that an act conforming to honour and honesty can end up, at the end of the line, as a good political decision.

This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

For one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.

One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.

Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.

Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.

A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.

The superior man has neither anxiety nor fear. When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?

If a white cloth is stained even with a small spot, the stain appears very ugly indeed. So the smallest fault of a holy man becomes painfully prominent. (299)

Virtue runs no risk of becoming contemptible by being exposed to view, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy.

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

If some people hadn't felt obliged to repeat what is untrue simply because they had at one point maintained it, they would have turned into quite different people.

There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute. Therefore the superior man is watchful over himself, when he is alone.

Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action. (152)

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.

I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.

Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.

Sincerity is the end and beginning of things; without sincerity there would be nothing. On this account, the superior man regards the attainment of sincerity as the most excellent thing.

I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could. (8 November 1944)

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

No lie you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or shorter circulation, like a Bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be presented there for payment, — with the answer, No effects.

Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height. So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.

To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.

What does it mean when we see a committee set up to make a supposedly impartial review of a situation, and then discover that the committee is affiliated with the very industry whose profits are at stake?

If the country is to flourish, capital must be invested in enterprise. But those who seek to draw upon other people's money must be wholly candid regarding the facts on which the investor's judgment is asked.

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

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 the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right — stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.

The superior man examines his heart, that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause for dissatisfaction with himself. That wherein the superior man cannot be equaled is simply this — his work which other men cannot see.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine ownself be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man. A man who himself does not believe what he tells another … has even less worth than if he were a mere thing. … makes himself a mere deceptive appearance of man, not man himself.

They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent. I shall show you how men can prove their words to be their own: it is by doing what they have been talking about.

This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered.

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.

In matters concerning truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small; for the general principles which determine the conduct of men are indivisible. Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.

It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected. (35)

A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.

All that glisters is not gold.

Men may have friends, statesmen cannot.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.

Do yourself what you wish others to do. (1021)

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.

We are called upon not to be successful, but to be faithful.

Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes

No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

The way to learn whether a person is trustworthy is to trust him.

All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.

The dove loves even when it attacks; the wolf hates even when it flatters.

After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost.

For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.

He who has the truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.

Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep — but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.

Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.

No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling. (20 December 1939)

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.

And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause:

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!

Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use. We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured.

A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.

The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn't your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished?

There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.

In executing the duties of my present important station, I can promise nothing but purity of intentions, and, in carrying these into effect, fidelity and diligence.

Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.

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.

To write history is as important as to make history. If the writer does not remain true to the maker, then the unchanging truth takes on a quality that will confuse the humanity.

I have lived as plain Mr. Jinnah and I hope to die as plain Mr. Jinnah. I am very much averse to any title or honours and I will be more than happy if there was no prefix to my name.

we know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty,

My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition there.

He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon.

Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.

As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it.

The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective.

It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.

As a people we claim the right to speak with peculiar emphasis for freedom and for fair treatment of all men without regard to differences of race, fortune, creed or color. We forfeit the right so to speak when we commit or condone such crimes as these of which I speak.

For the trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.

A typical vice of American politics — the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.

I have been on twenty public company corporate boards, not counting any Berkshire subsidiaries. ... The independent directors, in many cases, are the least independent. ... If the income you receive as a corporate director ... is an important part of your income ... how in the world is that independent?