Having a strong sense of loyalty is crucial for building strong relationships, maintaining family ties, and even forging business alliances. So let’s see if we can learn more about this interesting personal and collective value from these quotes about loyalty.
Simply put, loyalty is an almost unshakable sense of support, allegiance, and even obedience to someone or something. In addition to familial, there are arguably more important loyalties we all hold. For example, some people are incredibly loyal to their social groups, countries, or even religious beliefs. In fact, many groups particularly nurture feelings of solidarity in their members.
Ultimately, loyalty is both a personal and collective value. Personally, I believe the way someone talks about it can show a lot about that person. On the other side, it can also reveal something about the group the person belongs to. With that in mind, I’ve included a wide array of opinions, including those that don’t show blind loyalty as a positive characteristic.
37 Quotes About Loyalty That Will Make You Think About Your Values
Faithful, Committed, Patriotic: Enlightened Quotes About Loyalty
#1. “The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith.” ― Confucius
#2. “I don’t care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations…I don’t think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren’t there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?” ― Graham Greene
#3. “Discipline, loyalty — such things held Japan together once. That may sound fanciful, but it’s true. People were bound by a sense of duly. Towards one’s family, towards superiors, towards the country. But now, instead, there’s all this talk of democracy. You hear it whenever people want to be selfish, whenever they want to forget obligations.” ― Kazuo Ishiguro
#4. “Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.” — Woodrow T. Wilson
#5. “It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.” ― Emilie Autumn
#6. “If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
#7. “If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.” ― Jacqueline Carey
#8. “Love is an emotion. Loyalty is a choice.” ― Hollow Ryan
More Eye-Opening Quotes About Loyalty
#9. “Loyalty isn’t grey. It’s black and white. You’re either loyal completely, or not loyal at all.” — Sharnay
#10. “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” ― James Herriot
#11. “Loyalty is a continuous phenomenon; you don’t score points for past action.” ― Natasha Pulley
#12. “‘But what are loyalty and caring really worth?’
‘To me? Everything.’” ― Richelle Mead
#13. “You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day.” ― Jeffrey Gitomer
#14. “Loyalty is a characteristic trait. Those who have it, give it free of charge.” ― Ellen J. Barrier
#15. “Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others.” ― Ada Velez-Boardley
#16. “Loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.” — General Colin Powell
Discerning Quotes About Loyalty and the People You Trust
#17. “I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me — they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.” ― Veronica Roth
#18. “We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.” ― Cornel West
#19. “So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” ― Haniel Long
#20. “I may be stupid, as you say, to believe in honor and friendship and loyalty without price. But these are virtues to be cherished, for, without them, we are no more than beasts roaming the land.” ― David Gemmell
#21. “It was a lesson most people learned much earlier; that even friendship could have an undisclosed shelf life. That loyalty and affection, so consuming and powerful, could dissipate like fog.” ― Jennifer Haigh
#22. “Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue — perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.” ― Milan Kundera
#23. “Loyalty is what we seek in friendship.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
#24. “I hold loyalty above everything. Anything that causes a man to betray his friends, country, and his calling is cheap — low class — in my eyes.” ― Mukta Singh-Zocchi
#25. “I learned a long time ago, the loyalty of friends is a greater power than the will of an enemy.” ― Brandt Legg
#26. “Surround yourself with good people. People with purpose and passion and who value principles, integrity, and loyalty.” ― Carlos Wallace
Contrary Quotes About Loyalty and Questioning Your Values
#27. “It isn’t an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don’t know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself.” ― Megan Whalen Turner
#28. “My father wrote: ‘Always question where your loyalties lie. The people you trust will expect it, your greatest enemies will desire it, and those you treasure the most, will, without fail, abuse it.’” ― Emily Thorne
#29. “Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?” — Cassandra Clare
#30. “Loyalty to the country — always. Loyalty to the government — when it deserves it.” — Mark Twain
#31. “I used to advertise my loyalty, and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray.” ― Albert Camus
#32. “It’s only possible to betray where loyalty is due.” ― Muriel Spark
#33. “If you’re questioning a person’s loyalty, then there’s no question. This is not the person you want to confide in.” ― Ron Baratono
#34. “There is no loyalty in the heart of a traitor — only the false act of appearing trustworthy.” ― Jesus Apolinaris
#35. “Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” — Mark Twain
#36. “I always think loyalty’s such a tiresome virtue.” ― Agatha Christie
#37. “There was something about total loyalty, uncritical devotion, endless patience, perpetual forgiveness, and the general inability to believe that a loved one could ever do anything wrong that, frankly, just gave him the creeps.” ― Joanne Harris
To Conclude
The people who said all these things understood what most of us now know — loyalty binds us to each other. And, in addition to making our relationships with other people much stronger, it also strengthens our sense of self. If you’ve ever questioned someone’s loyalty, you already know the lengths people are willing to go to defend it.
Of course, this kind of blind devotion often has a dark side. After all, how can we be sure that the people and ideas we believe in are worthy of our fealty? As these quotes about loyalty have shown, sometimes, not being loyal is the best thing you can do.
