Quotes About Honesty

Whoever writes about his childhood must beware of exaggeration and self-pity. I do not want to claim that I was a martyr or that Crossgates was a sort of Dotheboys Hall. But I should be falsifying my own memories if I did not record that they are largely memories of disgust.

There was truth and untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

to a time when truth exists

thou contentedly let the years slip by and make no effort to repay, then thou hast but the contemptible soul of a slave. No man is otherwise who cannot respect himself and no man can respect himself who does not repay honest debts.

If thou contentedly let the years slip by and make no effort to repay, then thou hast but the contemptible soul of a slave. No man is otherwise who cannot respect himself and no man can respect himself who does not repay honest debts.

He must pay his debts with all the promptness within his power, not purchasing that for which he is unable to pay

Truth is always simple.

Deride not what I say because of its simplicity. Truth is always simple.

Quoique paysan et simple laboureur, Germain s'était rendu compte de ses devoirs et de ses affections.

Irony is just honesty with the volume cranked up.

I have plenty of friends, she says. Name one. She looks at me. Which I guess is sort of sweet.

Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others).

Ted, I swear to God, quothe he.

Look, show your cock. It's the shortest line between two points. The world ain't giving away nice lives. You got a trust fund? You a genius? Show your cock. It's what you got.

Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others). If we learn what a truthful sentence looks like, a little flag goes up at a false one.

Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to. The comic is the truth stripped of the habitual, the cushioning, the easy consolation.

A work of art moves us by being honest and that honesty is apparent in its language and its form and in its resistance to concealment.

The falsehood that exalts we cherish more Than meaner truths that are a thousand strong.

The world is full of people with agendas, trying to persuade us to act on their behalf (spend on their behalf, fight and die on their behalf, oppress others on their behalf). But inside us is what Hemingway called a 'built-in, shockproof, shit detector.' How do we know something is shit? We watch the way the deep, honest part of our mind reacts to it. And that part of the mind is the one that reading and writing refine into sharpness.

Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to. The comic is the truth stripped of the habitual, the cushioning, the easy consolation.

I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong.

La mayoría de los matrimonios, la mayoría de las relaciones amorosas, logra perdurar gracias a un rosario de reconciliaciones, no siempre veraces.

A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.

I pray Heaven to bestow the best blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.