Quotes About Honesty

Integrity is like virginity: once lost, never recoverable

The orthodoxy runs, that if a marriage is founded on less than perfect truth it will always come to light. I don't believe that. Marriage moves you further away from the examination of truth, not nearer to it.

He found himself reflecting on questions of honesty. Personal honesty, artistic honesty. How they were connected, if indeed they were. And how much of this virtue anyone had, and how long that store would last. He had told friends that if ever he repudiated Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, they were to conclude that he had run out of honesty

One test might be whether, as the years pass, you come out better from your own story, or worse. To come out worse might indicate that you are being more truthful. On the other hand, there is the danger of being retrospectively anti-heroic: making yourself out to have behaved worse than you actually did can be a form of self-praise.

No intento tejer una historia; estoy tratando de contar la verdad.

I don't want you to be a woman of mystery. I think I'd hate it. Either it's just a façade, a game, a technique for ensnaring men, or else the woman of mystery is a mystery even to herself, and that's the worst of all.

The truth is not kind.

Their pretensions are naked and vulnerable and for that reason, to me at least, rather charming.

In James's comparatively simple set of values, a little toadying seldom went amiss.

Omission is a sin only if, in the process of deceiving, you forget the truth. Lying is a sin only if, in the process, the lie becomes the only truth.

All this time, you've been lying to me!

Everyone's a liar. Everyone I've ever known.

Now, here's a philosophical dilemma for a vicar … is it a lie if you don't know you're lying? Is it a lie if you're lying to yourself?" "Is it a sin if I tell my cousin to bugger off?

the biggest lie people tell themselves is that they prefer to know the truth.

Would I cheat to save my soul? No. But to save my G.P.A.? Yes.

Yet you told him you loved him? Yes, I did. Bridgid was clearly impressed. You're more courageous than I am. The fear of being rejected pains me to even think about, yet you boldly told Brodick how you felt, even though he hadn't spoken his feelings. Actually, he told me I loved him.

If you'd wanted to get married with your feet on the ground, then you should have said something.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure; if there be any virtue … think on these things." NEW TESTAMENT, PHILIPPIANS, 4:8

You can't love someone without trust.

But was it cowardice to call out a lie, to insist on truth?

You don't like it that I am the one you need to keep the wolf from the door; that comes as no surprise. But I am the one you have. At some point we'll both have to risk telling the truth.

What sort of man would you choose for yourself, Liadan?, he asked me. One who is trustworthy, and true to himself, I answered straightaway. One who speaks his mind without fear. One who can be a friend as well as a husband. I would be contented with that.

The two of them are like open books, they speak the truth at the risk of their own lives, and when they keep silent their thoughts blaze like a beacon from their eyes.

It is frightening, how one lie is just the first strand in an ever increasing fabric of untruth. And once this fabric is woven, it is very hard to unravel.