Quotes about Integrity

Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.

The selfish thing to do was to play to everyone's needs to feel accepted. The unselfish thing to do was to be the person God created me to be, to serve him and people, to speak the truth, even when the truth wasn't going to make me popular.

Hypocrisy is a proud desire to appear better than you are. Be thoroughly humbled and vile in your own eyes, and hypocrisy is done.

Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies,) I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their mind with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-players use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.

It is a palpable error of some ministers, who make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living; who study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly.

An ingenious man can hardly stay with a people against their will; and a sincere man can more hardly, for any interest of his own, remain in a place where he is likely to be unprofitable, to hinder the good which they might receive from another man, who hath the advantage of a greater interest in their estimation and affection.

Hard studies, much knowledge, and excellent preaching are but a more glorious hypocritical sinning if the ends are not right.

Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279).

The ministerial work must be managed purely for God and the salvation of the people, and not for any private ends of our own.

Some desire to know merely for the sake of knowing, and that is shameful curiosity. Some desire to know that they may sell their knowledge, and that too is shameful. Some desire to know for reputation's sake, and that is shameful vanity. But there are some who desire to know that they may edify others, and that is praiseworthy; and there are some who desire to know that they themselves may be edified, and that is wise.

Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling—blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hindrances of the success of your own labors. It

Desire a thousand times more to be godly, than to seem so.