This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"As soon as we think with integrity we will realize that we are all properly stewards and that we cannot with integrity deny our responsibility for stewardship of every part of the whole." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"Ethics is putting principles into action. Consistently between what we say we value and what our actions say we value is a matter of integrity." - Michael S. Josephson
"Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will." - Oliver Cromwell
"Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many. What is genius or courage without a heart?" - Oliver Goldsmith
"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not." - Oprah Winfrey, born Oprah Gail Winfrey
"I also think that there's going to have to be more structure in our society, more discipline. Therefore, I think business leaders would be well-advised to spend much more time trying to have an influence on the political system." - Peter Scotese
"Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don't." - Peter Scotese
"There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive." - Plato NULL
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"In failing circumstances no man can be relied on to keep his integrity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing is at last sacred by the integrity of your own mind." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"For all the psychological and physiological conditions which test integrity - fear, desire, hunger, fatigue, disaffection, anger, pain - have little reality in memory or anticipation but rather exist for the most part in the narrow immediacy of the present." - Robert Grudin
"The person of integrity is a continuous person, for whom the present is a point on a line drawn out of memory and into the willed future, rather than an unpredicted and unwieldy configuration which seems to operate under its own law. The person of integrity is no superman; he will be, from time to time, defeated, frustrated, embarrassed and completely surprised. but neither is he the common and regular dupe of circumstance, compelled (like some tourist with a pocket dictionary) to consult conscience and emotion at each new turn of events." - Robert Grudin
"Integrity is telling yourself the truth. Honesty is telling the truth to other people." - Spencer Johnson
"When I cannot be forced, I am fooled out of my integrity. He cannot constrain if I do not consent. If I do but keep possession, all the posse of hell cannot violently eject me; but I cowardly surrender to his summons. Thus there needs no more to be my undoing but myself." - Thomas Fuller
"Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity." - W. Clement Stone, fully William Clement Stone
"True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others." -
"Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death." - Erik Erickson
"Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self. " - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"I believe that love is the main key to open the doors to the "growth" of man. Love and union with someone or something outside of oneself, union that allows one to put oneself into relationship with others, to feel one with others, without limiting the sense of integrity and independence. Love is a productive orientation for which it is essential that there be present at the same time: concern, responsibility, and respect for and knowledge of the object of the union." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Economy is integrity and profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debts; that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls." - John Hawkesworth
"We should never let ambition cause us to sacrifice our integrity or diminish our efforts in other areas. However, we need to remember that we never reach a serious goal unless we have the intention of doing so." - John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
"Image is what people think we are; integrity is what we really are." - John C. Maxwell
"It's true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime. You build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain. Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership. Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership. Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain." - John C. Maxwell
"Know that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars and his history... for contemplation or in fact... Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,or drown in despair when his days darken." - Robinson Jeffers, fully John Robinson Jeffers
"And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice." - Joseph Story
"The problem is how to obtain capital investment and still keep it under sufficient control to prevent exploitation; and how to preserve integrity and sovereignty without crippling economic or political ties to any country, bloc or system." - Kwame Nkrumah
"Charity has no label, compassion no religion, wisdom no dogma, empathy no rules. Integrity needs no laws, enlightenment no temples. Living in total harmony with Tao is beyond culture, oneness with Tao beyond philosophy. Emptiness and silence cannot be defined. The Way has no name, for it is Tao." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Don't worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward. " - Laura Schlesinger, fully Laura Catherine Schlessinger, aka Dr. Laura
"How frequently is the honesty and integrity of man disposed of by a smile or shrug! How many good and generous actions have been sunk into oblivion by a distrustful look, or stamped of proceeding from bad motives, by a mysterious and seasonable whisper!" - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
"It should be noted that people in the free market rarely bear false witness; integrity is the rule. The morning mile, phone calls, planes the airlines buy, autos by the millions – no one could list the instances – are as represented. We have daily, eloquent, enormous testimony that the Ten Commandments can be and are observed by fallible human beings. Contemporary politics is the most glaring of all exceptions." - Leonard E. Read
"It is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted." - Louisa May Alcott
"The new integrity of the world, in our view, can be built only on the principles of the freedom of choice and balance of interests. Every State, and now also a number of existing or emerging regional interstate groups, have their own interests. They are all equal and deserve respect. We consider it dangerously outdated when suspicions are aroused by, for instance, improved Soviet-Chinese or Soviet-German, German-French, Soviet- US or US-Indian relations, etc. In our times, good relations benefit all. Any worsening of relations anywhere is a common loss." - Mikhail Gorbachev, fully Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
"When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity - regardless of what others may do - you are destined for greatness. " - Napoleon Hill
"For indigenous people, in the time that defines one’s life, the relationship one has to the earth is the constant and true gauge that determines the integrity of one’s culture, the meaning of one’s existence, and the peacefulness of one’s heart." - Paul Hawken
"Men of courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action, — men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles, — intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to dare in order to succeed, — these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in hand, to the conquest of their rights." - Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
"My colleague, Dan Brock, suggests that academic philosophers should only get involved in the policy-making arena on a temporary, short-term basis. Maybe this is a way in which we could manage to have our cake and eat it too. For a short period one might engage in giving bad effective arguments without being thoroughly corrupted. Then one could retreat back to the academy to wash one's moderately soiled hands. After having one's intellectual integrity restored and reinforced, one might then be ready to repeat the cycle." - Philip L. Quinn
"When you have extended your hands and taken the body, bow, and put your hands before your face, and worship the living Body whom you hold. Then speak with him in a low voice, and with your gaze resting upon him say to him: When we gather, we are privileged to carry You, the Living GOD, Who is incarnate in the bread, and we embrace You in our palms, LORD of the worlds whom no world has contained. You have circumscribed Yourself in a fiery coal within our fleshly palms–You LORD, Who with Your palm measured out the dust of the earth. You are holy, GOD incarnate in my hands in a fiery coal which is a body. See, we hold You, although there is nothing that contains You; our bodily hands embrace You, LORD of natures whom a fleshly womb embraced. Within a womb You became a circumscribed body, and now within each hand, You appear to us as a small morsel. You alone have made us worthy to approach You and receive You. You enable our hands to embrace You confidently–You make us worthy, LORD, to eat You in a holy manner and to taste the food of Your body as a taste of your life. Instead of the stomach, the body’s member, may the womb of our intellect and the hand of our mind receive You. May You be conceived in us as You were in the womb of the Virgin. There You appeared as an infant, and Your hidden self was revealed to the world as corporeal fruit; may You also appear in each of us here and be revealed by us in fruits that are spiritual works and just labors pleasing to Your will. And by your food may our desires be killed; and by the drinking of Your cup may our passions be quenched. And instead of just feeding the members of our human body, may our thoughts receive strength from the nourishment of Your Body. Like the manifest members of our body, may our hidden thoughts be engaged in exercise and in running and in works according to Your living commands and Your spiritual laws. From the food of Your Body and the drinking of Your Blood may we grow in integrity and unity and wax strong inwardly, and excel outwardly, and run diligently, and attain to the full stature of an interior human being, individually and corporately. May we each and in our global and local covenant communities, become more like The Perfect Man, mature in intelligence, residing in all our spiritual members, our head being crowned with the crown of Thy perfection, obedient to the Word and Command of Your Father in all of our behavior. May we, Your Church, become a royal diadem in Your hands, as You promised us, O hidden GOD whose manifestness we embrace in the perfection of Your Body." - Philoxenus of Mabbug, aka Aksnāyā NULL
"Whenever, therefore, form accedes, it conciliates in amicable unity the parts which are about to compose a whole; for being itself one it is not wonderful that the subject of its power should tend to unity, as far as the nature of a compound will admit. Hence beauty is established in multitude when the many is reduced into one, and in this case it communicates itself both to the parts and to the whole. But when a particular one, composed from similar parts, is received it gives itself to the whole, without departing from the sameness and integrity of its nature. Thus at one and the same time it communicates itself to the whole building and its several parts; and at another time confines itself to a single stone, and then the first participation arises from the operations of art, but the second from the formation of nature. And hence body becomes beautiful through the communion supernally proceeding from divinity." - Plotinus NULL
"The following points are intended to amplify my meaning: 1. All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection. 2. For their development, children need to the respect and protection of adults who take them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to become oriented in the world. 3. When these vital needs are frustrated and children are, instead, abused for the sake of the adults' needs by being exploited, beaten, punished, taken advantage of, manipulated neglected, or deceived without the intervention of any witness, then their integrity will be lastingly impaired. 4. The normal reactions to such injury should be anger and pain. Since children in this hurtful kind of environment are forbidden to express their anger, however, and since it would be unbearable to experience their pain all alone, they are compelled to suppress their feelings, repress all memory of the trauma, and idealize those guilty of the abuse. Later they will have no memory of what was done to them. 5. Disassociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger, helplessness, despair, longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression in destructive acts against others (criminal behavior, mass murder) or against themselves (drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, psychic disorders, suicide). 6. If these people become parents, they will then often direct acts of revenge for their mistreatment in childhood against their own children, whom they use as scapegoats. Child abuse is still sanctioned -- indeed, held in high regard -- in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to escape the emotions from how they were treated by their own parents. 7. If mistreated children are not to become criminals or mentally ill, it is essential that at least once in their life they come in contact with a person who knows without any doubt that the environment, not the helpless, battered child, is at fault. In this regard, knowledge or ignorance on the part of society can be instrumental in either saving or destroying a life. Here lies the great opportunity for relatives, social workers, therapists, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, officials and nurses to support the child and believe in her or him. 8. Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great-grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve their parents, whom they invariably love [I would say 'need' - SH] of all responsibility. 9. For some years now, it has been possible to prove, through new therapeutic methods, that repressed traumatic experiences of childhood are stored up in the body and, though unconscious, exert an influence even in adulthood. In addition, electronic testing of the fetus has revealed a fact previously unknown to most adults -- that a child responds to and learns both tenderness and cruelty from the very beginning. 10. In the light of this new knowledge, even the most absurd behavior reveals its formerly hidden logic once the traumatic experiences of childhood need no longer remain shrouded in darkness. 11. Our sensitization to the cruelty with which children are treated, until now commonly denied, and to the consequences of such treatment will as a matter of course bring an end to the perpetuation of violence from generation to generation. 12. People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be -- both in their youth and in adulthood -- intelligent, responsive, empathic and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their own children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience, and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning. It will be inconceivable to such people that earlier generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel comfortable and safe in this world. Since it will not be their unconscious drive in life to ward off intimidation experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in their adult life more rationally and creatively." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski
"Voting is the most precious right of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process." - Hillary Rodham Clinton
"A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is a pattern integrity. Each individual is a pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"All the great metaphysical integrity of all the individuals, which is potential and inherent in the complex interactions of generalized principles, will always and only coexist eternally." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"I am convinced that creativity is a priori to the integrity of the universe and that life is regenerative and conformity meaningless." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual . . . the individual's integrity of speaking and acting only on the individual's own within-self-intuited and reasoned initiative . . . the individual's never joining action with others as motivated only by crowd-engendered-emotionalism, or a sense of the crowd's power to overwhelm, or in fear of holding to the course indicated by one's own intellectual convictions." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller