If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.  ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le MisanthropeAct V, sc.1; BMC

The prig is a very interesting psychological study, and t[T]hough of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something.  ~Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1890LCD

I have fancied myself a rebel, but at every critical moment of my life, I have been exactly the child my parents raised.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.  ~George Bernard Shaw

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what’s right.  ~Isaac Asimov

For the human mind is seldom at stay:  If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.  ~Samuel Richardson

Your life may be the only Bible some people read.  ~Author Unknown

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.  ~Matthew Henry

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.  ~Norman Vincent PealeSG

I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.  ~Michel de Montaigne, translated, translation by Charles Cotton, revised by Hazlitt and Wight; Works. Book III, chap.1, Of Profit and Honesty; BMC

Laws control the lesser man.  Right conduct controls the greater one.  ~Chinese Proverb

Reputation is character minus what you’ve been caught doing.  ~Michael Iapoce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Boardroom

Character is higher than intellect.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Goodness is beauty in the best estate.  ~Christopher Marlowe

The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck!  ~Author Unknown

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

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.
~Ogden Nash, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, 1938, LCD; Inter-Office Memorandum, BMC

If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.  ~John LubbockCUL

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.  ~William Safirein The New York TimesTo have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.  ~G.K. Chesterton

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals.  I have within me the great pope, Self.  ~Martin Luther

I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met.  ~Dwight Lyman MoodyClV

It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it.  ~A.A. Hodge

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.  ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670, no. 352, MBT

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.  ~Michel de Montaigne

You can stand tall without standing on someone.  You can be a victor without having victims.  ~Harriet Woods

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.  ~G.B. Shaw, Man and Superman, 1905LCD

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.  ~Joseph Baretti, quoted by James Boswell, 1766, commonly misattributed to Samuel Johnson

Whether you end up in heaven or hell, it’s not God’s plan it’s your own.  ~Cowboys & Aliens

Just do good, don’t worry about the road ahead. ~Monk Wansong

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.  ~Henry Louis Mencken, "Sententiae," This and That: A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1948MBT

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.  Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.  Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.  Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.  Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.  But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.  ~Buddha

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it.  ~Immanuel Hermass von Fichte

You don’t carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.  ~Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.  ~Abraham LincolnMBT

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.  ~Confucius

Be careful of selfish motives.  You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

What you allow, you encourage.  ~Michael Josephson, whatwillmatter.com

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.  ~Thomas Jefferson, 1809MCTO

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.  ~Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1595, book 3; PMB; There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.  ~Michel de Montaigne, translation by Charles Cotton, revised by Hazlitt and Wight; Works. Book III, chap.9, Of Vanity; BMC

Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it.  Autograph your work with excellence.  ~Author Unknown

Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?  ~William Lloyd Garrison

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves – such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine.  The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.  ~Albert Einstein, "What I Believe," Forum and Century, 1930

I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops.  ~Oscar WildeCUL

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, To Kill a Mockingbird

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes.  Or needs to.  ~Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Following the Equator, 1897

God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.  ~Alfred KorzyybskiDCMOO

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.  ~Will Rogers

God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.  ~Chester W. Nimitz

I would rather be right than President.  ~Henry Clay, speech, 1850MCTO

Transcend political correctness and strive for human righteousness.  ~Anthony J. D’Angelo, The College Blue Book

Sometimes, to do the right thing, we must keep a promise we never made.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.  ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown

The time is always right to do what is right.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.  ~Bodie Thoene, Warsaw Requiem

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

A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.  ~Charles Evans Hughes

Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted.  I don’t accept it.  ~Pablo CasalsCUL

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.  ~Will Durant

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.  ~Thomas Paine

Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice.  ~Léon BlumCUL

If we were all to be judged by our thoughts, the hills would be swarming with outlaws.  ~Johann SigurjonssonCUL

There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character.  ~Frederick W. FaberCUL

Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily.  All other "sins" are invented nonsense.  (Hurting yourself is not a sin – just stupid.)  ~Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

You do not wake up one morning a bad person.  It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

We judge ourselves by our best acts and most noble intentions, but we will be judged by our last worst act.  ~Michael Josephson, whatwillmatter.com

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.  ~William Faulkner

Take care that no one hates you justly.  ~Publilius Syrus

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.  ~George Washington

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.  ~Author Unknown

Values are good things only if they are good values.  ~Michael Josephson, whatwillmatter.com

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.  ~Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under SocialismHHQ

Conscience warns us before it reproaches us.  ~Comtesse Diane (Marie Josephine de Suin de Beausacq), Maximes de la vie, 1908PMB

Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?  ~Socrates

Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits.  ~Thomas HardyCUL

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.  ~French Proverb

If at first you don’t succeed, do it like your mother told you.  ~Author Unknown

I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.  ~Abraham Lincoln