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Learn how to spot a real one with these quotes and sayings!
By Rachell Lee — Written on Jan 31, 2021
Anyone can be loyal to any thing, person, or idea. The true meaning of loyalty involves other traits, such as trustworthiness, honesty, and being loving and caring.
What does it mean to be loyal?
The true definition of being loyal is to be “unswerving in allegiance such as being faithful to a private person whom faithfulness is due or being faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.”
That's a mouthful — but these loyalty quotes and sayings describe the importance of loyalty on an everyday basis.
Loyalty is important in life.
It is a virtue that supports almost every backbone of human interaction, especially relationships, friendships, family, employers, employees, and more.
What is loyalty in a relationship?
In relationships, loyalty means that you are fully committed to being with someone through thick and thin.
If you want to learn more about the true meaning of loyalty, here are some inspirational and intuitive loyalty quotes to live by in your everyday life.
Quotes About Loyal Friends
1. “I don’t like to give up on people when they need someone not to give up on them.” — Carol Bryant
2. “I think a good friend, to me, is all about trust and loyalty. You don’t ever want to second-guess whether you can tell your friend something.” — Lauren Conrad
3. “A friend is someone who walks into a room when everyone else is walking out.” — Gary Moore
4. “Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue — perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.” — Milan Kundera
5. "Loyalty and friendship, which is to me the same, created all the wealth that I’ve ever thought I’d have." — Ernie Banks
6. “One loyal friend is worth 10 thousand relatives.” — Euripides
7. “Can’t be loyal to everyone, it’s a conflict of interest.” — Tyconis Allison
8. “I look for these qualities and characteristics in people. Honesty is number one, respect, and absolutely the third would have to be loyalty.” — Summer Altice
9. “Loyal companions are an unequaled grace, stanching fear before it bleeds you numb, a reliable antidote for creeping despair.” — Dean Koontz
10. “When people show loyalty to you, you take care of those who are with you. It’s how it goes with everything. If you have a small circle of friends, and one of those friends doesn’t stay loyal to you, they don’t stay your friend for very long.” — John Cena
11. “Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones” — John Lennon
12. “Be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, you build the trust of those who are present.” — Stephen Covey
13. “Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard.” — Confucius
14. “It’s not about who is real in your face it’s about who stays loyal behind your back.” — Talin Orfali Ghazarian
Family Loyalty Quotes
15. “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
16. "Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses." — Ann Landers
17. "When you get married, your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your spouse, and to the family that you create together." — Phil Mcgraw
18. “I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can’t get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That’s in friendship, that’s a deal, that’s a commitment. Don’t give me paper – I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that’s for life..” — Jerry Lewis
19. "I’ll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty." — Samuel Goldwyn
20. "I don’t like to give up on people when they need someone not to give up on them." — Carrol Bryant
21. “A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.” — Xun Zi
22. "Birds of a feather flock together." — Proverb
23. “My dear boy, the people who only love once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—simply a confession of failures.” — Oscar Wilde
24. "Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." — J.R.R. Tolkien
25. "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
26. "Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." — Mark Twain
27. "Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses." — Ann Landers
28. "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 Whaler Turner
29. "Loyalty is dead, the experts proclaim, and the statistics seem to bear them out. On average, U.S. corporations now lose half their customers in five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less than one. We seem to face a future in which the only business relationships will be opportunistic transactions between virtual strangers." — Frederick R. Reichheld
30. "A person who deserves my loyalty receives it…" — Joyce Maynard
31. “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.” — Mario Puzo
Loyalty Quotes For Relationships
32. “Love and loyalty run deeper than blood.” — Richelle Mead
33. "Loyalty is what makes us trust, trust is what makes us stay, staying is what makes us love, and love is what gives us hope." — Glenn van Dekken
34. “Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others.” — Ada Velez-Boardley
35. “You give loyalty, you’ll get it back. You give love, you’ll get it back.” — Tommy Lasorda
36. “Honesty and loyalty are key. If two people can be honest with each other about everything, that’s probably the biggest key to success.” — Taylor Lautner
37. “If you cheat on a girl that’s willing to do anything for you, you actually cheated yourself out of true loyalty.”
38. “Loyalty isn’t grey. It’s black and white. You’re either loyal completely, or not loyal at all.” — Sharnay
39. “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
Loyalty Quotes For Work
40. "Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life." — Napoleon Hill
41. "You don't earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day." — Jeffrey Gitomer
42. "Every great business is built on friendship." — James Cash Penney
43. "You've got to give loyalty down, if you want loyalty up." — Donald T. Regan
44. "Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned." — Janet L. Robinson
45. "If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness." — Elbert Hubbard
46. "Unless you can find some sort of LOYALTY, you cannot find unity and peace in your active living." — Josiah Royce
47. “Better to have one woman on your side than ten men.” — Robert Jordan
Deep Quotes About Loyalty And Betrayal
48. “Loyalty is a decision, a resolution of the soul.” — Pascal Mercier
49. “Loyalty is something you give regardless of what you get back, and in giving loyalty, you’re getting more loyalty; and out of loyalty flow other great qualities.” — Charles Jones
50. “Loyalty means I am down with you whether you are wrong or right, but I will tell you when you are wrong and help you get it right.”
51. “Loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not.” — General Colin Powell
52. "Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it." — Mark Twain
53. “Loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, 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
54. "Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon." — Samuel Butler
Powerful Loyalty Quotes About Trust
55. “Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.” — Woodrow T. Wilson
56. "If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness." — Elbert Hubbard
57. "Where there is loyalty, weapons are of no use." — Paulo Coelho
58. “My whole thing is loyalty. Loyalty over royalty; word is bond.” — Fetty Wap
59“Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.” — Confucius
60. “The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.” — Michael Jordan
61. “Loyalty is a 24-hour proposition, 24/7. It’s not a part-time job.” — Jonathan Moyo
62. “I’ll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty.” — Samuel Goldwyn
63. “Don't let your loyalty become slavery. If they don't appreciate what you bring to the table, let them eat alone.”
64. “Loyalty cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line. In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart — the center of self-respect and human dignity. It is a force which leaps into being only when conditions are exactly right for it — and it is a force very sensitive to betrayal.” — Maurice Franks
65. “I place an enormous premium on loyalty. If someone betrays me, I can forgive them rationally, but emotionally I have found it impossible to do so.” — Richard E. Grant
The Best Quotes About Loyalty
66. “Loyalty is from above, betrayal is from below.” — Bob Sorge
67. “Respect is earned. Honesty is appreciated. Trust is gained. Loyalty is returned.”
68. “Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable, than loyalty.” — Cicero
69. “The whole point of loyalty was not to change: stick with those who stuck with you.” — Larry McMurtry
70. “Staying with someone that doesn’t appreciate you isn’t loyalty, it’s stupidity.”
71. “The only true test of loyalty is fidelity in the face of ruin and despair.” — Eric Felten
72. “Loyalty is a characteristic trait. Those who have it, give it free of charge.” — Ellen J. Barrier
73. “Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others.” — Ada Velez-Boardley
74. “Don’t let your loyalty become slavery. If they don’t appreciate what you bring to the table, let them eat alone.”
75. “One of the things that makes me who I am is the loyalty I have to people I hold close to my heart.” — Simone Elkeles
76. “A woman’s loyalty is tested when her man has nothing. A man’s loyalty is tested when he has everything.”
77. “My whole thing is loyalty. Loyalty over royalty; word is bond.” — Fetty Wap
78. “Unless you can find some sort of loyalty, you cannot find unity and peace in your active living.” — Josiah Royce
79. “You cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things.” — Clarence Francis
80. “A successful life is not an easy life. It is built on strong qualities, sacrifice, endeavor, loyalty and integrity.” — Grant D. Searchfield
81. “It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.” — Emilie Autumn
82. “A successful life is not an easy life. It is built on strong qualities, sacrifice, endeavor, loyalty and integrity.” — Grant D. Searchfield
83. “The only people I owe my loyalty to are those who never made me question theirs.”
84. “What makes a woman beautiful is her loyalty to and her friendships with other women, and her honesty with men.” — Vanessa Marcil
85. “We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” — G.K. Chesterton
86. “Loyalty means I am down with you whether you are wrong or right, but I will tell you when you are wrong and help you get it right.”
87. “Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.” — Morihei Ueshiba
88. “When you get married, your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your spouse, and to the family that you create together.” — Phil McGraw
89. “I’m only loyal to people who are loyal to me and if you ain’t loyal to me well you ain’t getting no loyalty from me. That’s a fact.”
90. “Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.” — Hannah Arendt
91. “Loyalty to the family must be merged into loyalty to the community, loyalty to the community into loyalty to the nation, and loyalty to the nation into loyalty to mankind. The citizen of the future must be a citizen of the world.” — Thomas Cochrane
92. “You give loyalty, you’ll get it back. You give love, you’ll get it back.” — Tommy Lasorda
93. “You have to move in life, but the loyalty you develop in a community is always remembered. But if you leave, you don’t pick it up in the next town. It’s not an add-on, you know, because you lose what you had.” — Richard DeVos
94. “Within the hearts of men, loyalty and consideration are esteemed greater than success.” — Bryant H. McGill
95. “I think a good friend, to me, is all about trust and loyalty. You don’t ever want to second-guess whether you can tell your friend something.” — Lauren Conrad
96. “I can’t expect loyalty from the army if I do not give it.” — George C. Marshall
97. “What you can’t buy is the loyalty that comes through our dedicated crewmembers.” — David Neeleman
98. “You cannot get me to be disloyal to a friend. You just can’t do it. Loyalty is a part of what I live by. I didn’t say I was going to be loyal to my friend because he was right. I’m going to be loyal to my friend because he’s my friend.” — Jim Brown
99. “My honor is my loyalty.” — Heinrich Himmler
100. “As I’m getting older, I’m really learning unconditional love and loyalty are extremely important.” — Bindi Irwin
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Rachell Lee is a writer who covers news, love and relationships, and self-care topics.