Quotes About Honesty

I do believe that when a man confesses to his neighbor and says he's sorry, he thinks more of him than he did before. You see, we all know we have done wrong, but we haven't usually confessed it. And it's a funny thing, but when the time comes when there's something he needs to repent of himself, he hesitates for fear of the shame of having to confess it. To me the shame lies in not confessing after you know you're in the wrong.

Never, my little one, hide anything from those that love you. Never let anything that makes itself a nest in your heart, grow into a secret, for then at once it will begin to eat a hole in it.

Trust the Oak," said she; "trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre,—you will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair, if you let her near you at night.

Not to be believed does not at all agree with princesses: for a real princess cannot tell a lie. So all the afternoon she did not speak a word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real princess is never rude—even when she does well to be offended.

I do not say we are called upon to dispute and defend the truth with logic and argument, but we are called upon to show by our lives that we stand on the side of truth. But when i say truth, I do not mean opinion. To treat opinion as if that were truth is grievously to wrong the truth. The soul that loves the truth and tries to be true will know when to speak and when to be silent.

Even in the matter of stealing we must think of our own beam before our neighbour's mote. It is not easy to be honest. There is many a thief who is less of a thief than many a respectable member of society.

I am sorry I cannot think of a compliment to pay you-without lying, that is.

My dear queen," said he, "duplicity of any sort is exceedingly objectionable between married people of any rank, not to say kings and queens; and the most objectionable form duplicity can assume is that of punning." MacDonald, George. The Light Princess: and Other Fairy Stories (Kindle Locations 193-195). Dancing Unicorn Books. Kindle Edition.

He was but a married old bachelor, and fancied he must keep up his dignity in the eyes of his wife, not having yet learned that, if a man be true, his friends and lovers will see to his dignity.

What is called a good conscience is often but a dull one that gives no trouble when it ought to bark loudest;

To deny oneself is to act no more from the standing ground of self.... No longing after the praise of men influence a single throb of the heart. Right deeds, and not the judgment thereupon; true words, and not what reception they may have, shall be our concern.

every honest cry, even if sent into the deaf ear of an idol, passes on to the ears of the unknown God, the heart of the unknown Father.

The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies.

Let us keep our shame and be made clean! Shame is not defilement, though a mean pride persuades men so. On the contrary, the man who is honestly ashamed has begun to be clean.

There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul.

I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and He does not expect it."—It would be more honest if he said, "I do not want to be perfect: I am content to be saved." Such as he do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but for being what they called saved.

Where there is no truth there can be no faith.

The minister was an honest man so far as he knew himself and honesty, and did not relish this form of submission. But he did not ask himself where was the difference between accepting the word of man and accepting man's explanation of the word of God!

She did not even trouble herself much to show Godfrey her gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.

Truth is one, and he who does the truth in the small thing is of the truth; he who will do it only in a great thing, who postpones the small thing near him to the great farther from him, is not of the truth.

I think it far better for a man to go wrong upon his own honest judgment, than to go right upon anybody else's judgment, however honest also.

As soon as a man begins to make excuses, the time has come when he might be doing that from which he excuses himself.

entrance of the Rev. Clement Sclater -- the minister of her parish, recently appointed. He was a man between young and middle-aged, an honest fellow, zealous to perform the duties of his office, but with notions of religion very beggarly. How could it be otherwise when he knew far more of what he called the Divine decrees than he did of his own heart, or the needs and miseries of human nature?

A pretend friendship was the vilest of despicable things.