Quotes About Honesty

Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.

If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men.

This, reader, is an honest book...I want to appear in my simple, natural and everyday dress, without strain or artifice; for it is myself that I portray

I speak the truth not so much as I want, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.

A noble heart should not belie its thoughts; it wants to reveal itself even to its inmost depths. There everything is good, at least everything is human.

There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgement as doth anger

Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked. Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

L'honneste est stable et permanent.

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing.

The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous. I

It is a cowardly and servile characteristic, to go about in disguise, concealed behind a mask, without the courage to show oneself as one is … A generous heart should never disguise its thoughts, but willingly reveal its inmost depths. It is either all good, or all human.

Jeg har i øvrigt besluttet mig til at turde sige alt, hvad jeg har mod til at gøre i handling, ja, selv tanker, som ikke må komme frem, må jeg misbillige. Den sletteste handling og karakteregenskab hos mig forekommer mig slet ikke at være nær så styg som den lumpenhed, det er ikke at turde kendes ved den.

The way of truth is one and artless; the way of private gain and success...is double, uneven, and fortuitous.' -On the Useful and the Honourable.

I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense.

For my part, I shall take care, if I can, that my death discover nothing that my life has not first and openly declared.

Pain compels even the innocent to lie.

Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human.

It is not without good reason said, that he who has not good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying

That's what lying had done to the world. All the lying that people had been doing since the dawn of time, all the lying they were doing still. The price everyone paid for it was the death of trust. It meant that no two humans, however innocent they might be, could ever approach one another like two animals. Civilization!

Because, you know, evil demon librarians, not so much known for the honesty policy.

Michelle M. Pillow

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak. –SHAKESPEARE