Honesty Is Quotes & Sayings

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. — Richard Steele

Yes, even I am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. — Mark Twain

Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there. — Edward De Bono

Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be. — Terry Goodkind

As I stood in front of the mirror in the beautiful little black dress, I knew that I was looking at a woman whom I would never see again. I wished I had never seen her in the first place, but the truth is she had always been there. I was being dishonest to myself by pretending that she hadn't. — Jane L Rosen

A man who becomes used to deluding himself, who fails to face his own faults with revolutionary honesty and even lies to himself, is the most likely to become a traitor, since lying is the beginning of treachery. — Ashraf Dehghani

Most people are not good people. In business, in art, in almost every 'world' I've been in, most people I've meet are pretty gray to black. It takes practice to be the person who is a source of compassion and honesty. — James Altucher

I look away from his eyes. Since I've met you, Brennus, my life has not been mine, I say with more honesty than I like to admit to myself. Time with you is visceral ... white-knuckle moments that make me know that I'm alive. I think I have become addicted to the rush of fear and desire you create ... the uncertainty that I was once forced to endure has now become a need, like those pills that people keep in their medicine cabinets. — Amy A. Bartol

Success is ninety-nine percent mental attitude. It calls for love, joy, optimism, confidence, serenity, poise, faith, courage, cheerfulness, imagination, initiative, tolerance, honesty, humility, patience, and enthusiasm. — Wilferd Peterson

The third basic need of a male in a relationship is an attractive woman; for a woman, honesty and openness. — Myles Munroe

He had a feeling that somewhere in the course of her life something had happened to her, something terrible which in the end had given her a great understanding and clarity of mind. He knew, too, almost at once, on the day she had driven up to the door of the cottage, that she had made a discovery about life which he himself had made long since . . . that there is nothing of such force as the power of a person content merely to be himself, nothing so invincible as the power of simple honesty, nothing so successful as the life of one who runs alone. Somewhere she had learned all this. She was like a woman to whom nothing could ever again happen. — Louis Bromfield

I read somewhere that every inch of rope used in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so that wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. — Louisa May Alcott

Somehow I get the idea that being whole is about being perfectly consistent. I'd rather we be perfectly honest. — Danielle LaPorte

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. — Anthony Venn-Brown

Deceit is the mark of evil. Even if the evil messenger does not appear in person, the test is the same. — John Andreas Widtsoe

'Truth Will Set U Free' is about honesty. My philosophic belief that ultimately being true to yourself is liberating, with every individual's inalienable right to be who they are without fear or recrimination. — Corey Hart

One reason I won't compromise is because I believe honesty helps you win over the long haul. You can win a game tomorrow and lose a team. You can lose a game tomorrow and win a football team. — Lou Holtz

Achieving the good life is more a matter of being than of doing or giving. It calls for intense self-scrutiny, a relentless honesty about one's motives, and a persistent feeling that we are no better - and perhaps worse - than those we are trying to help. — Sydney J. Harris

You think if you don't talk about it, you can just pretend everything is all right? Everything is not all right. Not with us, not with your parents, not with anything today. And if you let yourself go anywhere real with it, you have to acknowledge it. — Laura Dave

Do you know how hard it is for me to sit on the other side of this booth and not reach across and pull you against me? Just to make sure you really are alive?" he asked, and my breath caught at the raw honesty in his words. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

One of the most commonly overlooked spiritual practices is daring to be completely honest with everyone you encounter. Some may say others cannot handle their honesty, but true honesty is not a strategy or a weapon of any kind. It is the willingness to be open and absolutely transparent in sharing how any moment feels in your heart. It has nothing to do with confrontation, accusation, or any form of blame. True honesty is the willingness to stand completely exposed, allowing the world to do what it may, and say what it will, only so you may know who you are - beyond all ideas. — Matthew Kahn

Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do. — Criss Jami

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be-both in their youth and in adulthood-intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience. — Alice Miller

What you're doing--it's the right thing. Going after what you love despite everything you've done, and I won't sugarcoat it, you've done some pretty lousy things, but you did it all because you love this single human being so much you couldn't help yourself. There is an honesty to that. — Tarryn Fisher

Preparation is essential to achieving your goals in life. You don't want to miss a great opportunity because you were not prepared. Determination and motivation will put you on the right track. You've got the passion, that driving desire to be successful. But, you must take certain steps to put you in a position to be readily available for the reward. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

The one great thing about football is that whatever happens it will manifest itself on the pitch. If it's right, you'll see it on the pitch, if it's wrong, it will be on the pitch. In business you can get fellas who are doing crooked deals and nobody knows anything about it. There is an ultimate honesty about football. Politics is part of the lying game, I wouldn't trust any of them. In football you can hide for a while, but ultimately the truth comes out. I always loved that. — Johnny Giles

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact. — Lyndon B. Johnson

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is never unkind to the weak. He treats Martha with humiliating honesty, just as he would treat the male disciples. — Kate Cooper

Always enter a room with your head up. Right away that tells people you're your own person. If your head is down, that lets people feel they can do anything they want with you. When you talk to somebody, white or colored, always look him straight in the eye. First of all, it's honesty. Second, he knows he can beat up on you if you don't make eye contact. — Yvonne S. Thornton

I find in animals the same thing I find so wonderful in children. That purity, that honesty, where they don't judge you, they just want to be your friend. I think that is so sweet. — Michael Jackson

I think my love of truth and honesty forces me to notice that the liberal intelligentsia of Western countries is betraying itself where Islam is concerned. — Richard Dawkins

There is always a way to be honest without being brutal. — Arthur Dobrin

A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what's being said is the party line. — Colin Quinn

I could have forgiven you, you know, " I say. "For trying to kill me during initiation. I probably could have."
We are both quiet for a while. I don't know why I told him that. Maybe just because it's true, and tonight, of all nights, is the time for honesty. Tonight I will be honest, and selfless, and brave. Divergent.
"I never asked you to, he says, and turns to leave. But then he stops at the door frame and says, "It's 9:24. — Veronica Roth

I find American girls have a spirit and honesty about them that is most refreshing. — Ann Rinaldi

It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good. — Pope Francis

Because it is a thousand pities never to say what one feels, he thought... — Virginia Woolf

We, however, want to become those we are
human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense
while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics
our honesty! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Sanity is to be found in accurate honesty to oneself. — David Bain

In the battles over the Bible in the twentieth century, and now in the twenty-first century, conservatives moved away from the word infallible in favor of inerrant. This happened in part because theological liberals had begun using the word infallible to mean something more like ... oh, I don't know, something more like fallible. And that reminds me of something else. How is it that liberals preen themselves for the virtues of frankness and honesty when they do things like this to words like infallible, or to words like frank and honest for that matter? Or even words like liberal. And now, in the latest go-rounds, the same kind of thing is happening to the word inerrant. Men with solemn faces and a shaky donor base affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, and they also affirm that this is not inconsistent with the subtle truth that the Bible has mistakes in it. The serpent was craftier than all the beasts of the field, having completed some post-doctoral work in Europe. — Anonymous

Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. — Thucydides

It is not true that men can be divided into absolutely honest persons and absolutely dishonest ones. Our honesty varies with the strain put on it. — George Bernard Shaw

According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and "coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage. — Brad Blanton

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is - limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death - He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. — Dorothy L. Sayers

There are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness. — Frank Herbert

More than one thing is never true. People love to say the opposite, love to talk about inner conflict, nuances, levels of complication. But if this last year has taught her anything, it has taught her that people are clearer on what they want than they admit to themselves. They want something, or they don't. They decide to keep working at a relationship or they give up. They love someone or they love someone else. And if they love someone else, it is often the idea that they love most, especially when they haven't learned enough to figure out that this new person probably won't save them either. — Laura Dave

I think honesty is a big part. Because when you sing live, you want the audience to believe you. — Pixie Lott

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. — Jane Austen

We believe in honesty, morality, and purity; but when they enact tyrannical laws, forbidding us the free exercise of our religion, we cannot submit. God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven and against the Government ... Polygamy is a divine institution. It has been banded down direct from God. The United States cannot abolish it. No nation on the earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined ... I defy the United States; I will obey God. — John Taylor

I wish our country could be a free and happy one. Every citizen need not go against their conscience and can find their own place by their virtue and talents; a simple and happy society, where the goodness of humanity is expanded to the maximum, and the evilness of humanity is constrained to the minimum; honesty, trust, kindness, and helping each other are everyday occurrences in life; there is not so much anger and anxiety, a pure smile on everyone's face. — Xu Zhiyong

The truth is never dressed for the occasion. — Steve Maraboli

The humble sinner will sometimes be interpreted as one of the filthiest in the eyes of man yet immersed in the eyes of God, and this is due to the volition of honesty regarding his own corruption. — Criss Jami

Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect. — Thomas Jefferson

It is my conviction that secrets are more costly in the long run than honesty. — Kathryn Harrison

I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say "Just keep it real with me," but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can't handle the truth, don't want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren't willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge "what is" and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless! — Stephanie Lahart

Honesty is not necessarily interesting. I don't want to hear about your dreams or your acid trips, probably unless you make them really interesting. — Anne Lamott

I read things that male relationship experts write about women and I read things that female relationship experts write about men, then I feel a true sadness in my heart. Why can't there be a simple, pure, direct openness? Why can't there be a simple, real, open trust? The truth is that male or female, gay or straight - we are all people - we have all been broken and put back together in so many different ways ... it's really just about learning how to recognize the sound of the other one's cracks. And that's what it's really about, just that. — C. JoyBell C.

I want the young people to pay attention because, see, back when I first met Barack, we started dating, he had everything going for him. All right, ladies, listen to this. This is what I want you to be looking for. Yes, he was handsome-still is. I think so. He was charming, talented, and oh-so smart, truly. But that is not why I married him. Now, see, I want the fellas to pay attention to this. You all listening? What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was his character. You hear me? It was his character. It was his decency, his honesty, his compassion and conviction. — Michelle Obama

Conservative ideas are alive and dynamic, the result of a free and intellectually honest vision for the country. As long as conservatism is strong, the future of a strong America is assured. — Rush Limbaugh

The major problem in our lives is to decide and clarify our responsibilities. To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality. This commitment, according to Peck, "requires the willingness and the capacity to suffer continual self-examination." Such an ability requires a good relationship with oneself. This is precisely what no shame-based person has. In fact, a toxically shamed person has an adversarial relationship with himself. Toxic shame - the shame that binds us - is a core part of neurotic and character disordered syndromes of behavior. — John Bradshaw

Even though I'm an actor, even though I know a little bit about film, I very much view things as an audience member. For me, whether it's TV, film, theater, whatever, it's a big movie, a small movie, whatever it is, I look for the truth in it. I look for the honesty. I just look for if it feels honest and real to me. — Elisabeth Moss

Belief is an odd thing for a defense counsel, Tommy. It is not necessary to believe in your client to defend him. Some would say that it is easier to not truly have an opinion, that the maneuverings of the law are only clouded by the emotions of trust and honesty. But — John Katzenbach

Because that's what unfaithfulness is, isn't it? A cancer that's always there in the back of your mind, eating away at the foundations of the relationship. It's happened once, it could happen again, so you're always looking for telltale signs or symptoms to show that it's reappeared ... — Matt Dunn

Effective, true deep listening and honest dialogue is a gift a soul can choose to give. How easy or difficult that can be depends on the values you hold in your life. — Angelica Hopes

Jogging in the park is my excuse to look at all the girls. — Ray Davies

But do we know how to make love stay?'
I can't even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day. — Tom Robbins

Personal power is really the issue. It is only through tremendous attention to detail that you will be able to gain personal power and searing self-honesty. — Frederick Lenz

what matters the most is a mix of strategy, cunning, honesty, patience, and the readiness to grab every opportunity. Above all, a girl must always be willing to do what is necessary. ACCIDENTS — Amy Tan

Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is. — Sharon Salzberg

The good news of suffering is that it brings us to the end of ourselves - a purpose it has certainly served in my life. It brings us to the place of honesty, which is the place of desperation, which is the place of faith, which is the place of freedom. — Tullian Tchividjian

Self-sacrifice, we drool, is a virtue. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feeling? The independence of his thoughts? But these are a man's supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. — Ayn Rand

Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else. — Mark Twain

Sincerity is not part of the political vocabulary. If it is used or implied bells should ring — Bangambiki Habyarimana

There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. — Alfred North Whitehead

The Memory Of You Is Like A Drug To Me — Jeremy Aldana

To set aside one's prejudices, one's present needs, and one's own self interest in making a decision as a director for a company is an intellectual exercise that takes constant practice. In short, intellectual honesty is a journey and not a destination. — Mervyn King

Do you know that when one who has influence with youth- be he teacher, leader or parent- seriously weakens the foundations upon which a young person has built, by faith-destroying challenges the youngster is not yet equipped to meet, he fashions a disciple who has been effectively cut loose from fundamentals at a time when he needs most to rely on them? The challenger may himself be a moral, educated, well-meaning person of integrity, doing what he does in the name of honesty and truth. His own character may have been formed in an atmosphere of faith and conviction which, through his influence, he may now help to destroy in his young follower. "Disenchanted" himself in his mature years, he turns his powers on an immature mind and leaves it ready prey for nostrums and superstitions and behavior he himself would disdain. — Marion D. Hanks

Peace is letting it be. Letting life flow, letting emotions flow through you. — Kamal Ravikant

My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief. Making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls ... that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe. — Michelle Obama

Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. — Sam Harris

Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps us from having open relationships. — Randy Alcorn

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope

Live by old Ethicks and the classical Rules of Honesty. Put no new names or notions upon Authentick Virtues and Vices. Think not that Morality is Ambulatory; that Vices in one age are not Vices in another; or that Virtues, which are under the everlasting Seal of right Reason, may be Stamped by Opinion. And therefore though vicious times invert the opinion of things, and set up a new Ethicks against Virtue, yet hold thou unto old Morality; and rather than follow a multitude to do evil, stand like Pompey's pillar conspicuous by thyself, and single in Example of Virtue; since no Deluge of Vice is like to be so general but more than eight will escape; Eye well those Heroes who have held their Heads above Water, who have touched Pitch, and have not been defiled, and in the common Contagion have remained uncorrupted. — Thomas Browne

An honest man's word is as good as his bond. — Miguel De Cervantes

Yet literal-mindedness is not honesty or fidelity to truth
far from it. For it is the whole experience of mankind that sexual life is always, and must always be, hidden by veils of varying degrees of opacity, if it is to be humanized into something beyond a mere animal function. What is inherently secretive, that is to say self-conscious and human, cannot be spoken of directly; the attempt leads only to crudity, not to truth. — Theodore Dalrymple

Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself. — Sydney J. Harris

My grandfather was an amazing man. You talk about character and integrity, everyone who knew him, whether they agreed with him or not, said, 'George Romney is a good man, and he sticks to his principles: a man of honesty and hard work, integrity.' — Tagg Romney

And a man who is six feet three in height has six feet and three inches of evil to do battle with, if he has not six feet three of strength and honesty to fight for him. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I made one mistake. Who doesn't? But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. Of course it left me deformed and unserviceable, defective and dangerous to associate with. ... But what in God's name has happened to charity? ... Self-interest guides me like the next man but not invariably; not all the time. I use compassion more than you do; I have loyalties and I keep by them; I serve honesty in a crooked way, but as best I can; and I don't plague my debtors or even make them aware of their debt. ... Why is it so impossible to trust me? — Dorothy Dunnett

Honesty is admired, and starves. — Juvenal

First off, faith is not about concrete answers, religious absolutes, creeds, or dogma. Faith is about the search for understanding, the raising of important questions, the open honesty of having doubt, and the realization that no one has it all completely right nor does any human, human religious teaching, or theology hold all the answers. — Jarrod Cochran

These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest. — Samuel Johnson

Never do anything that you can't admit doing, because if you are that ashamed of whatever it is, it's probably wrong. — Ashly Lorenzana

Where there seems to be a difference between guys being nuts and women being nuts is that guys are much more open in calling each other on stuff; lots of insults and dirty names. Whereas women will talk frankly and honesty, but there also seems to be more passive aggressiveness. — Paul Feig

It is man that makes truth great, not truth that makes man great. — Confucius

The only time you seem honest is when you're insulting someone!"
"The only honest things I can say to you are insults. — Brandon Sanderson

The rifts in this ancient wall continue to be patched with exhortations to women to avoid challenging the norm even if it means faking orgasm and sacrificing honesty in their intimate relationships with men. In the past we have been willing to pay this price; whether we should continue to do so is question for individuals; not historians, to decide. — Rachel P. Maines

Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards. — Kerry Stokes

I think I've been called edgy - but in all honesty, there is a safety in what I do because I'm always the idiot. Unless you're just listening to buzz words and not taking into account the context of the situation, you see I'm always the ignoramus. — Sarah Silverman

The photographer's problem is to see clearly the limitations and at the same time the potential qualities of his medium, for it is precisely here that honesty no less than intensity of vision is the pre-requisite of a living expression. The fullest realization of this is accomplished without tricks of process or manipulation, through the use of straight photographic methods. — Paul Strand