Quotes About Honesty

Insightful and heartbreaking, but also wonderfully comedic in its gutsy honesty. A beautiful and powerful memoir.

Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world.

The kids out there want something they can relate to, something that's real most of that whiny stuff isn't real. The cheesy pop songs just bore me to death.

To me, horror is when I see somebody lying. I mean a person I know. A friend. And he's telling me something that I accept. And then suddenly, as he or she is telling it, there's something that gives them away. They're not telling me the truth.

The problem: If you've an antique for sale, then, sad to relate, the world isn't your oyster. It's not that easy. Even if somebody gives you the National Gallery, your options are still very, very limited. Okay, you can sell the Old Masters, set up a trust, buy your favorite brewery. But that's strictly it. You're limited by honesty on one hand and law - that hobble of sanity - on the other.

It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see one's own faults. One shows the faults of others like chaff winnowed in the wind, but one conceals one's own faults as a cunning gambler conceals his dice.5

If thinking is confirmatory rather than exploratory in these dry and easy cases, then what chance is there that people will think in an open-minded, exploratory way when self-interest, social identity, and strong emotions make them want or even need to reach a preordained conclusion? 3. WE LIE, CHEAT, AND JUSTIFY SO WELL THAT WE HONESTLY BELIEVE WE ARE HONEST

People are trying harder to look right than to be right.

We lie, cheat, and cut ethical corners quite often when we think we can get away with it, and then we use our moral thinking to manage our reputations and justify ourselves to others.

When all three conditions apply, people do their darnedest to figure out the truth, because that's what the audience wants to hear. But the rest of the time—which is almost all of the time—accountability pressures simply increase confirmatory thought. People are trying harder to look right than to be right.

The Fairness/cheating foundation

But the rest of the time—which is almost all of the time—accountability pressures simply increase confirmatory thought. People are trying harder to look right than to be right.

WE LIE, CHEAT, AND JUSTIFY SO WELL THAT WE HONESTLY BELIEVE WE ARE HONEST

Many psychologists have studied the effects of having "plausible deniability." In one such study, subjects performed a task and were then given a slip of paper and a verbal confirmation of how much they were to be paid. But when they took the slip to another room to get their money, the cashier misread one digit and handed them too much money. Only 20 percent spoke up and corrected the mistake.24

But the story changed when the cashier asked them if the payment was correct. In that case, 60 percent said no and returned the extra money. Being asked directly removes plausible deniability; it would take a direct lie to keep the money. As a result, people are three times more likely to be honest.

Others declare good intentions

That was the thing about knowing people's secrets: It could make them not like you.

He that would keep a secret must keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep.

If people stop having secrets they stop having power.

Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put one's self in the clear (Sir Humphrey Appleby)

There is no such thing as an alternative fact," said Rudy. "The truth is only ever the truth. What changes is whether we accept it, even if it is inconvenient and contrary to the truth we'd prefer.

Distance is a liar. Perspective, on the other hand, is a brutally honest motherfucker. - Joe Ledger, "Hot Time in the Old Town

The notion of severality of function is, regrettably, one that was gradually abandoned throughout the twentieth century because it did not accord with modernism's puritanical espousal of 'honesty'.

To write better you must develop your taste for truth. You have to pay more attention to what you really think, feel, see and want.