“I would rather sacrifice political position tomorrow than do an unworthy act which would subject me to the censure of an honest man”

Source: To his troops, 12 September 1759, after reciting Thomas Gray's Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard the evening before storming Quebec City. Quoted in Francis Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 3 (p. 59).

Source: Emile or On Education

Speech on the Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters (7 March 1773)
1770s

Said in 1923 when he was criticized by several writers due to the light style of his nonetheless extremely popular plays.
Source: http://curistoria.blogspot.com/2009/05/pedro-munoz-seca-las-cosas-claras.html

In a letter following his defeat in the 1830 elections, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133
Context: I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.

Book I, Ch. 26
Essais (1595), Book I

S’il fallait absolument choisir, j’aimerais mieux faire une chose immorale qu’une chose cruelle. <br class="br"> Le Lys Rouge http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Lys_rouge/I [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 1