Why should I expect to be exempt from censure; the unfailing lot of an elevated station? My Heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best circumstances would permit; yet, I may have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means.

I think if you look at people, whether in business or government, who haven't had any moral compass, who've just changed to say whatever they thought the popular thing was, in the end they're losers.

A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

In politics, as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease, and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example, is more prevalent than precepts.