If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your own integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

It cannot be your duty to do anything that is beyond your reach or your strength at the moment. It cannot be your duty to do anything that sacrifices your own integrity or your own spiritual development.

But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

Sleep that masters all.

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

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.

I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.

As leaders we are not only responsible for harvesting our own success, but for cultivating the success of the next generation.

The purpose of Propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.

The people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downwards, and as wild beasts fly to the wilderness.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

I had long since taught myself to follow the inner voice. I delighted in submitting to it. To act against it would be difficult and painful to me.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important, and you do that by being genuine and humble.

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over ashes.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

Know yourself. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.

There is only one success—to be able to spend your life in your own way.

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.