“The difference between a prophet and a poet is that the prophet lives what he teaches—and the poet does not. He may write wonderfully of love, and yet not be loving.”

The gap between sung virtue and lived virtue · Remark to Mary Haskell while working on The Prophet

• Integrity
• Love
• Poets

“A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world.”

Conscience given precedence over public opinion · The Spectator

• Conscience
• Integrity
• Reputation

“It is a consolation that, from youth to age, I have found no line I wished to blot, or departed a moment from the severer taste which I imbibed from the simplest and purest models of classical composition.”

Late in life he claims a lifelong fidelity to classical restraint · Preface to St John in Patmos, 1832

• Integrity
• Poetry
• Taste

“Seek to be worthy of your own highest commendation.”

Encouraging self-respect based on one's own highest standards · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Integrity
• Self Knowledge
• Standards

“I have nothing to add, and nothing to retract.”

A deliberately formal defence of consistency despite apparent contradiction. · Speech, The Classics and the Sciences, 1923

• Humour
• Integrity
• Principles

“Courage in a writer is the willingness to follow a line of thought wherever it leads, regardless of popular approval.”

Defining intellectual bravery as steadfast devotion to honest inquiry · Essay on literary independence

• Courage
• Integrity
• Writing

“What he craves above all else is that he shall be calm and right and faithful in his place.”

Worth measured by fidelity rather than outward victory · Essay, The Future of Our Culture, Journal of Negro Education

• Duty
• Faith
• Integrity

“He must illustrate this love and trust by his daily conduct, and in his home circle, and in his business relations.”

Insisting that beliefs must be demonstrated through conduct · Essay, Self-Conquest

• Behaviour
• Faith
• Integrity

“The New Thought is not a religion of Sundays, but of every day.”

Arguing that beliefs matter only when they shape everyday conduct · Essay, Concentration

• Action
• Integrity
• Religion

“The utmost type of heroism, which alone is worthy of the name, must be described, merely, as complete self-faithfulness: as integrity.”

Defining true heroism as unwavering integrity and faithfulness to oneself · Biography, James Joyce

• Character
• Courage
• Integrity

“You see what I wanted to say is just so and so, not something else.”

Her firm stance against well-meaning editorial alterations to her hymns · Conversation (as recorded by William Alexander)

• Art
• Integrity
• Principle

“I am an honest man; I mean that I approve of most of my actions.”

Original: Je suis un honnête homme, je veux dire que j'approuve la plupart de mes actions. — Valéry gives honesty an inward and pragmatic definition rather than a conventional moral one. · Tel quel (French)

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Self Knowledge

“The poet is a maker, not a retail trader.”

Against the slogan-poet who merely sells a ready-made message · Preface, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938)

• Craft
• Integrity
• Poetry

“literary sacrilege—sacrilege against the dead in that which was best and noblest of them”

Her vehement view that unauthorised changes to hymns violate the author's sacred intent · Conversation (as recorded by William Alexander)

• Art
• Integrity
• Respect

“Absolute wretchedness would only be possible through the loss of self-respect; the lowering of an ideal or the failure of a principle.”

Making integrity rather than circumstance the foundation of personal dignity · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Dignity
• Integrity
• Principles

“Je ne veux pas être heureuse, je veux être entière.”

Expressing a desire for wholeness and authenticity rather than uncomplicated happiness · Journal, 1913–1934

• Happiness
• Identity
• Integrity

“To betray publicly the private life and constrained ideal of that inward self for a reward's sake would be a poor collapse.”

Refusing money and fame if they cost Fiona's isolation · Letter to Alexander Hood

• Integrity
• Privacy
• Sacrifice

“I repeat my answer of yesterday, that the only terms upon which I will continue in the editorial charge of the 'Overland' are those which I offered two days ago, which I have never changed and do not intend to change.”

Firm resolve in a business negotiation · Letter to J. H. Carmany, June 9, 1869

• Integrity
• Principle

“Is it not precisely when betrayed by those who should guard it that truth steps forward?”

Original: Forrådt av dem som vakt burde være, just av dem, si, er det ikke sådan at en sannhet står frem? — Observations on how truth often emerges through adversity and betrayal · Political essay, 1874 (Norwegian)

• Integrity
• Justice
• Truth

“Political life in our country has plowed in muddy channels, and needs the infusion of clearer and cleaner waters.”

A vivid metaphor for the need to purify political life rather than merely alter its institutions. · Speech, Woman's Political Future, 1893

• Change
• Integrity
• Politics

“Above all things you will hold the Muses in reverence, even in singular veneration, and never make them serve dishonest things, jests, or injurious libels.”

Original: Sur toutes choses tu auras les Muses en reverence, voire en singuliere veneration, et ne les feras jamais servir à choses des-honnestes, à risées, ny à libelles injurieux. — The poet's calling is sacred and not to be cheapened · Abrégé de l'art poétique français, 1565 (French)

• Integrity
• Poetry
• Sacred

“That record must satisfy at all costs to the word and to the man behind the word.”

Putting the integrity of the literary record above personal comfort. · Speech, Literature, 1906

• Integrity
• Truth
• Writing

“If thou lovest Glory, thou must trust her truth. She followeth him who doth not turn and gaze after her.”

Suggesting that true glory comes to those who do not chase it · Imaginary Conversations

• Fame
• Glory
• Integrity