A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership

by James B. Comey

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. —REINHOLD NIEBUHR

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. —HERMANN HESSE

“We know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. —THOMAS JEFFERSON

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you … —RUDYARD KIPLING, “IF”

ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. —MARK TWAIN

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. —DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”