27 Quotes by James B. Comey

Everyone lies at some point in their life. The important questions are where, about what, and how often?

Dishonest leaders have the same ability to shape a culture, by showing their people dishonesty, corruption, and deception. A commitment to integrity and a higher loyalty to truth are what separate the ethical leader from those who just happen to occupy leadership roles. We cannot ignore the difference.

He likely knew his father-in-law better than anyone else in the room and seemed to be attempting a similar sort of intervention. By engaging me in a conversation while the others were clearing out – Jared talked about the Clinton email investigation and how hard it must have been – perhaps he thought Trump would forget that he’d asked everyone out, including him. No.

Listening to others who disagree with me and are willing to criticize me is essential to piercing the seduction of certainty.

Speaking uphill takes courage. It takes overcoming a universal human affliction – the impostor complex. All of us labor, to one degree or another, under the belief that if other people really knew us, if they knew us the way we know ourselves, they would think less of us. That’s the impostor complex – the fear that by showing ourselves we will be exposed as the flawed person we are. If you don’t have this, in some measure, you are an incredible jerk and should stop reading immediately.

In the shock of the moment, I gave some thought to renting a convertible and driving the twenty-seven hundred miles back alone. But then I realized I was neither single nor crazy.

Ethical leaders do not run from criticism, especially self-criticism, and they don’t hide from uncomfortable questions. They welcome them.

Nothing will ever justify some losses, but we can survive, even thrive, if we channel grief into purpose and never allow evil to hold the field.

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.