Quotes About Honesty

You die when you can't be real, Dolly thought. When you can't see who you are and when you cannot see what it.

I have little interest in illustration, which lacks a kind of transcendental quality. It is too literal. I find typography more straightforward, conceptual, and appealing, with its strict geometric vocabulary. There is a bridge between typographic design and fine art, especially since typography possesses a complex subtlety. The idea, the method, and the honesty in expression are central to a designer who works with type.

One spoke to him in person, or one did not speak to him at all.

No, truth never gained anyone anything. All it did was anger those who preferred lies and confusion and backspinning in the hope of making themselves look better.

A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

If you give people a firm opinion, you run the risk of being wrong. Guess what? People remember when you're wrong a lot more often than when you're right. So the tendency is to include all the possibilities. It's intellectually honest, even.

Yet another proof that the drafters of the Constitution had made one simple but far-reaching error. They'd assumed that the people selected by The People to manage the nation would be as honest and honorable as they'd been. One could almost hear the "Oops!" emanating from all those old graves.

We sink ships and try to pretend that they're just ships—things without people in them. It's dishonest, but we do it anyway.

Either people were trustworthy or they were not.

that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.

I'm tired of all this. What ever happened to honesty, Arnie? What ever happened to telling the goddamned truth? It's all a fucking game here, and the object of the game isn't to do the right thing, the object of the game is to stay here. It's not supposed to be that way!

you respect a man who says what he believes, even if you disagree with it?

The mark of intellectual honesty is the solicitation of opposing points of view.

Ryan was a tough, formidable son of a bitch who met things head-on when he had to. That's his weakness, Wellington told himself. He prefers to meet things head-on. He lacks subtlety. It was a common failing of the honest, and a grievous weakness in a political environment.

Even more truly is it said: when you don't know spit, bullshit.

We don't ask that question. Why not? If I tell you the truth, you would not believe me. If I lie, you would believe me.

You feel what you fucking feel. You don't have to apologize to anyone.

If you're thinking about doing something you won't be able to confess to your spouse or best friend, then DON'T DO IT! YOU ALREADY KNOW IT'S WRONG!

No one knows what love is, he told me. If someone says they do, they're full of shit.

Nagin is a decent man

If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.

Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.

Some folks hide, and some folks seek, and seeking, when it's mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren't afraid to look and won't turn tail should they find it—and if they never do, they'll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth's sweet gas.

How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding ... are simply inauthentic... But there are folks who know and aren't afraid to look and won't turn tail should they find it--and if they never do, they'll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth or the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth's sweet gas.