No one's reputation is quite what he himself perceives it ought to be.

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.

Man is never perfect, nor contended.

There is indeed something deeply wrong with a person who lacks principles, who has no moral core. There are, likewise, certainly values that brook no compromise, and I would count among them integrity, fairness, and the avoidance of cruelty. But I have never accepted the argument that principle is compromised by judging each situation on its own merits, with due appreciation of the idiosyncrasy of human motivation and fallibility.

No man is great if he thinks he is.

One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.

no man is superior, unless it was by merit, and no man is inferior, unless by his demerit.

And changing for the better doesn't mean that he's ever going to reach good.

No matter what kind of promises a man who’s looking for power makes, he’s not going to turn out to be any different from the one he replaces.

all virtues are not equally becoming to all men and at all times.

One man is no more than another, if he do no more than what another does.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.

He who stops being better stops being good.