Quotes About Sincerity

If your speaking skills need work, by all means work on them. But it's better to be honest and straightforward than mere witty and clever.

Straight, not straightened.

Let it not be in any man's power, to say truly of thee, that thou art not truly simple, or sincere and open, or not good. Let him be deceived whosoever he be that shall have any such opinion of thee. For all this doth depend of thee. For who is it that should hinder thee from being either truly simple or good? Do thou only resolve rather not to live, than not to be such.

Speak what you really think, not what you think people want to hear.

fix thy mind upon the thing itself; look into it, and remembering thyself, that thou art bound nevertheless to be a good man, and what it is that thy nature requireth of thee as thou art a man, be not diverted from what thou art about, and speak that which seemeth unto thee most just: only speak it kindly, modestly, and without hypocrisy.

Let no one have the chance to accuse you, with any truth, of not being sincere or a good man. Make sure that anyone taking that view of you is a liar. This is wholly up to you -- who is there to prevent you being good and sincere?

Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don't you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like "can't"?

Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, "delving into the things that lie beneath" and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them, never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely. To worship it is to keep it from being muddied with turmoil and becoming aimless and dissatisfied with nature—divine and human.

A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you're in the same room with him, you know it. But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back.

For it may happen if thou dost not take heed. Keep thyself therefore, truly simple, good, sincere, grave, free from all ostentation, a lover of that which is just, religious, kind, tender-hearted, strong and vigorous to undergo anything that becomes thee.

It's quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that.

To praise without bombast; to display expertise without pretension.

virtudes estoicas que debían regir su vida: sinceridad, sencillez y valor.

Let no one have the chance to accuse you, with any truth, of not being sincere or a good man: make sure that anyone taking this view of you is a liar. This is wholly up to you- who is there to prevent you being good and sincere? You must just decide to live no longer if you won't have these qualities. And reason too abandons the man who won't. p102

The most noble thing is to be yourself.

Never esteem aught of advantage which will oblige you to break your faith, or to desert your honour; to hate, to suspect, or to execrate any man; to play a part; or to set your mind on anything that needs to be hidden by wall or curtain.

Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him.

Esse quam videri - To be, rather than to seem (to be)

Honesty is the best policy

Denn wirklich tugendhaft wollen nicht so Viele sein als scheinen.

Here's champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends.

Your friend is intellectually honourable, Jimmy's mother would say. He doesn't lie to himself.

By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been afraid to pronounce them.

After all you've been through, you deserve whatever I have left, which is not much but includes the truth.