• The laws of chivalry might have been adopted by the wisest legislators and by the most virtuous philosophers of all nations, and of all epochs.
  — J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye
   

• Chivalry is itself the poetry of life.
  — Friedrich von Schlegel
   

  • Newest Additions •

• To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobility.
  — Benjamin Franklin
   

• Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.
  — Charlotte Bronte
   

• It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well.
  — Pubilius Syrus
   

• Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing.
  — Phil Jackson
   

• Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.
  — Annie Lennox
   

• Fight the fights that need fighting, not just the ones you know you can win.
  — Anonymous
   

• It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.
  — J.R.R. Tolkien
   

• Despair is a sin.
  — Rene Dubos
   

  • On Courage •

• Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
  — Amelia Earhart
   

• Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the darkest places it leads.
  — Erica Jong
   

• You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
  — Eleanor Roosevelt
   

• Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure if they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.
  — Carl Sandburg
   

• Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
  — T.S. Eliot
   

• The fearless are merely fearless. People who act in spite of their fear are truly brave.
  — James A. LaFond-Lewis
   

• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
  — Nelson Mandela
   

• Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.
  — Franklin P. Jones
   

• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
  — Martin Luther King, Jr.
   

• Courage is grace under pressure.
  — Ernest Hemingway
   

  • On Chivalry in Business •

• Corporations were invented to serve mankind. Mankind was not invented to serve corporations.
  — Robert Hinkley, columnist for Business Ethics Magazine
   

• It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious (people) is a corporation with a conscience.
  — Henry David Thoreau
   

• I’m not a hero. I’m just doing my job.
  — Whistleblower Cynthia Cooper, after exposing a $2.4 billion cover-up at WorldCom.
   

• The cure (for unethical corporate behavior) comes not from laws and statues but from the embracing of a moral code to which conscience is bound. The real hope for corporate America lies in cultivating conscience.
  — Chuck Colson (columnist for the Washington Post)
   

• An employee that will lie for you will lie to you.
  — Michael Josephson
   

• Profit in itself is not bad. Profit without ethics is bad.
  — Daniel J. Travanti (commenting on the play “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller)
   

  • On Justice •

• The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
  — Abraham Lincoln
   

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
  — Martin Luther King, Jr.
   

• The fact that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything in our power to improve our own lives or the world as a whole. To the contrary, it suggests that we should.
  — Richard Carlson
   

• If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
  — Sir Francis Bacon
   

  • On Knightly Character •

• Political victory does not trump moral stain.
  — Carla Seaquist, reporter for the Christian Science Monitor
   

• Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.
  — Carlos Castaneda
   

• There are many ways of going wrong, but only one way of going right, so that the one is easy and the other hard — easy to miss the mark and hard to hit.
  — Aristotle
   

• It is only “silly” questions that can enlighten us; for behind whatever seems obvious lurks something that is not.
  — Denis De Rougemont
   

• Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow.
  — Maria Mitchell
   

• Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is not path and leave a trail.
  — Ralph Waldo Emerson
   

• Love is the virtue of the heart; sincerity the virtue of the mind; decision the virute of the will; courage the virtue of the spirit.
  — Frank Lloyd Wright
   

• Confess your hidden faults.
  Approach what you find repulsive.
  Help those you think you cannot help.
  Anything you are attached to, let it go.
  Go to places that scare you.
  — Author Pema Chodron, from Places that Scare You
   

• In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principles, stand like a rock.
  — Thomas Jefferson
   

• In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
  — W.B. Prescott
   

• Adversity does not build character. Adversity reveals character.
  — Sandy Dahl (widow of Jason Dahl, captain of American Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11, 2001)
   

• It’s a wonderful occurrence when you find someone who is strong enough to be gentle.
  — Anonymous
   

• Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
  — Abraham Lincoln
   

• The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
  — Albert Einstein
   

• There is more than one kind of Chivalry, and lance thrusts are not everything! In default of the sword we have the pen; failing the pen, speech; and in default of speech, honor, in our lives.
  — Leon Gautier
   

  • On Mercy •

• You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.
  — Buddha
   

• Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
  — Goethe
   

• Who takes vengeance or bears a grudge acts like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand.
  — Hebrew saying from the Jerusalem Talmud
   

• The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.
  — Islamic proverb
   

• Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
  — Buddha
   

• It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
  — Bruce Lee
   

• Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
  — Pema Chodron
   

• People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.
  — Abigail Van Buren
   

• I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
  — Abraham Lincoln
   

  • On Generosity •

• Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
  — Lao-Tzu
   

• When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.
  — Joseph Campbell
   

• Charity sees only the need, not the cause.
  — German proverb
   

• We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love.
  — Mother Teresa
   

• Generosity is a virtue never to be forsaken, even in the presence of an enemy. The tree does not withdraw its shadow, even from the woodcutter.
  — Chinese proverb
   

• The essence of love is kindness.
  — Robert Louis Stevenson
   

• The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
  — Honore De Balzac
   

  • On Faith •

• Be impeccable with your word. (Your) word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you.
  — Don Miguel Ruiz
   

• Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
  — Thomas Jefferson
   

• Remember, words have power; words do things. (Respectful people) employ words for blessing not cursing, for encouragement not discouragement, for creation not destruction.
  — Donald McCullough
   

• The greatest lie you can tell is not to finish the truth.
  — Zig Ziglar
   

• The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
  — James Baldwin
   

• The best way to keep your word is not to give it foolishly.
  — Texas Bix Bender
   

  • On Being a Role Model •

• Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
  — Inscription in the Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C.
   

• Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.
  — Albert Schweitzer
   

• A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
  — Henry B. Adams
   

• To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
  — Theodore Roosevelt
   

  • On Nobility •

• The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
  — Vince Lombardi
   

• There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. True nobility is in being superior to your former self.
  — Hindu proverb
   

• The most difficult choices between honor and dishonor occur when no one is watching.
  — John McCain
   

• Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
  — Aristotle
   

• One is never more on trial than in the moment of excessive good fortune.
  — Lewis Wallace
   

• When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
  — Cherokee Proverb
   

• The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
  — Samuel Johnson
   

• A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
  — Dave Barry
   

• You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
  — Plato
   

• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
  — Ralph Waldo Emerson
   

• Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.
  — Welsh proverb
   

• Don't worry that (your children) never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
  — Robert Fulghum
   

• Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
  — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
   

• (History demonstrates that) we are ordinary people, but we can rise to the occasion and do the extraordinary
  — David McCullough
   

• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity dangerous and dreadful.
  — Samuel Johnson
   

  • On Duty and Service •

• There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do, except to be of service.
  — “Loco Rivera” and Jeff Salz
   

• Death hangs over thee. While thou still live, while thou may, do good.
  — Marcus Aurelius Antonious
   

• I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
  — Albert Schweitzer
  
   
• I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do.
  — Hellen Keller
   

• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
  — Margaret Meade
   

  • On Hope •

• Courage is like love — it must have hope to nourish it.
  — Napoleon Bonaparte
   

• Without hope I would sit motionless, rusting like unused armor.
  — John Steinbeck
   

• Hope is clear eyed. Hope sees everything in front of it and through all the troubles and all the problems it sees a true path to a better future.
  — Dr. Jerome Groopman, staff writer for “The New Yorker” and author of The Anatomy of Hope: How People Pervail in the Face of Illness
   

• Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.
  — Vaclav Havel
   

• There is no such thing as an ordinary life.
  — Alexandra Johnson
   

• The hopeful (person) sees success where others see failure, sunshine where others see shadows and storm.
  — O.S. Marden
   

• We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
  — Jawaharal Nehru
   

• There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
  — Louis L’Amour
   

• Fall seven times, stand up eight.
  — Japanese proverb
   

Seven Knightly Virtues

Chivalry — Yesterday and Today