From Thomas S. Monson:
As we view the world around us, it is possible to feel at times that no one else is really honest and virtuous or honorable anymore. We see those who seemingly get ahead in life as a result of deceit, through false promises or by cheating others. In the glow of unearned good repute, people are apt to fall pray to self delusion and think that they can get away with anything. Others who want too badly for all men to speak well of them come to care more about outside opinions than their own actions.
Being true to oneself is anything but easy if the moral standards of one’s associates conflict with his or her own. The herd instinct is strong in the human animal, and the phrase “Everybody else is doing it” has an insidious attraction. To resist what “everybody else” is doing is to risk being ostracized by one’s peers, and it’s normal to dread rejection. Nothing takes more strength than swimming against the current.
. . . Perhaps the surest test of an individual’s integrity is his or her refusal to say anything to damage his or her self-respect. The cornerstone of one’s values system should be the question, “What will I think of myself if I do this?
. . . What is the point of . . . fame and glory, if in the end we cannot look ourselves in the eye, knowing that we have been honest and true? ~ (“Three Bridges to Cross,” Dixie State College Commencement, May 6, 2011)
. . . True to yourself, fair with your neighbor, you will not find it difficult to be faithful to your God. (“Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, Weber State College Baccalaureate, May 31, 1968)
