Rex Tillerson Commencement Speech: 5 Most Memorable Quotes

WASHINGTON, DC — Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil executive and secretary of state who President Donald Trump fired in March, is warning of a "crisis of ethics and integrity."

Though he did not call out the president by name, Tillerson, in a commencement speech delivered Wednesday at the Virginia Military Institute, warned of the consequences when leaders try to hide the facts. Specifically, he said, it's a threat to democracy.

Trump ousted Tillerson in a tweet after a rocky 14-month tenure at the State Department. Tillerson and Trump disagreed on several key diplomatic issues, including North Korea, the Paris climate change agreement and free trade. At one point, Tillerson reportedly called the president an "idiot."

You can watch the speech in its entirety above.

Here are five of Tillerson's most memorable quotes from the speech:

1. “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom."

2. “One of America’s great advantages is we have many allies. Our adversaries — China, Russia, Iran and the terrorist organizations — have few.”

3. "When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth – even on what may seem the most trivial of matters – we go wobbly on America. If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both public and private sector – and regrettably at times even the nonprofit sector – then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years."

4. "We must acknowledge, however, that every nation has a right to aspire to a better quality of life and that free trade and economic growth are the means by which opportunity is created for all people."

5. "We do not have to look far to find examples of the cost to individuals and to society when integrity is sacrificed for immediate gain or personal achievement. Such damage strikes at the very heart of a free society, it undermines the public trust in institutions and the overwhelming number of individuals, organizations who do live and compete by the rules every day."

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