Quotes about Principles

Priorities shift every day; values once defined, stay same.

Your values are the soul of your leadership, and they drive your behavior.

What you believe identifies who you are.

Thomas Macauley said, "The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he would never be found out." Life is like a vise; at times it will squeeze us. At those moments of pressure, whatever is inside will be found out. We cannot give what we do not have. Image promises much but produces little. Integrity never disappoints.

It has been said that you don't really know people until you have observed them when they interact with a child, when the car has a flat tire, when the boss is away, and when they think no one will ever know. But people with integrity never have to worry about that. No matter where they are, who they are with, or what kind of situation they find themselves in, they are consistent and live by their principles.

V. Gilbert Beers says, "A person of integrity is one who has established a system of values against which all of life is judged." Integrity is not what we do so much as who we are. And who we are, in turn, determines what we do. Our

Good character, with honesty and integrity at its core, is essential to success in any area of life. Without it, a person is building on shifting sand.

two things are responsible for making leadership rise? The first is competence. No one wants to follow an incompetent leader. The second is values. Values are principles that guide your decisions and behaviors.

Developing and maintaining integrity require constant attention. John Weston, chairman and CEO of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., says, "I`ve always tried to live with the following simple rule: Don`t do what you wouldn`t feel comfortable reading about in the newspapers the next day." That`s a good standard all of us should keep.

There's no such thing as business ethics—there's only ethics.

The respect that leadership must have requires that one's ethics be without question. A leader not only stays above the line between right and wrong, he stays well clear of the 'gray areas.

A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living.