“Image is what people think we are; integrity is whar we really are.”

John Boone
Red Mars (1992)
Context: The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing. X claims a, Y claims b. They make arguments to support their claims with any number of points. But when their listeners remember the discussion, what matters is simply that X believes a and Y believes b. People then form their judgment on what they think of X and Y.

Parliamentary Debates [Parliament of India] Pt.2 V.12-13 (1951); also quoted in Glorious Thoughts of Nehru (1964), p. 146
Context: Ultimately what we really are matters more than what other people think of us. One has to face the modern world with its good as well as its bad and it is better on the whole, I think, that we give even licence than suppress the normal flow of opinion. That is the democratic method. But having laid that down, still I would beg to say that there is a limit to the licence that one can allow, more so in times of great peril to the State.

As quoted in "Getting Real With Amanda Palmer" at AfterEllen (18 July 2007) http://archive.is/20120728142340/http://www.afterellen.com/people/2007/7/amandapalmer?page=0,0
Context: It makes me very sad when I find out that people who never hear our music think that we are really about image and not about substance. … I can understand why you might get that impression if you've never heard the band's music and see a photo of a guy and a girl dressed up in crazy costumes and think, "I don't need to pay attention to that — why do they need to wear those crazy clothes?" I think that's why we've constantly toured. Our live show is so intense and so substantive and emotional that it's sort of the price we have to pay for being so flamboyant — we have to prove ourselves as a rock band.

From 1980s onwards, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)
Context: Integrity of the individual is what we're being judged for and if we are not passing that examination, we don't really have the guts, we'll blow ourselves up. It will be all over. I think it's all the difference in the world.

on CBS' Evening News, October 9, 2001 http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2051
2000s

"Sharkwater" documentary
Context: I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.

Source: The Drawing of the Three

Janet Cawley (September 22, 1988) "The Joke's On George, Mike, Dan and Lloyd", Chicago Tribune, p. 23.