Quotes & Sayings About Honesty

Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen. — Gary Hopkins

They were as different as honesty and truth, but it takes experience to see the dissimilarities. Rocky was friendly, outgoing and boisterous; Charger was sullen, withdrawn and paranoid. Rocky liked people; Charger didn't. Rocky could trust; Charger didn't know the meaning of the word. — Joel M. McMains

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

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

If you cannot live with hope and create with intention or be kind to a stranger, bury your head. You are not living at all. — Dawn Garcia

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

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

You can't admit to someone else what you're too damn afraid to admit to yourself. — Beth Lewis

An honest private man often grows cruel and abandoned when converted into an absolute prince. Give a man power of doing what he pleases with impunity, you extinguish his fear, and consequently overturn in him one of the great pillars of morality. — Joseph Addison

When I do documentaries, my best information ends up on the cutting-room floor. People have trouble dealing with sexual honesty. — Betty Dodson

Scholars, theologians, and even poets have yet to be able to truly describe and touch upon the beauty, romance, and magic of a relationship built on 100% authenticity — Steve Maraboli

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

I found myself wanting the monster because it was honest, a level of honesty most go their entire lives without confronting, always content to hide behind their social masks and business cards. It — Kitty Thomas

I scrutinized his face for honesty and then looked away. He was either a lunatic, a really good liar, or he was actually telling the truth. — Amy Astorga

Small truths have greater power than big lies. — Matshona Dhliwayo

In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre. — David Wenham

'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

He who wishes to teach us a truth should not tell it to us, but simply suggest it with a brief gesture, a gesture which starts an ideal trajectory in the air along which we glide until we find ourselves at the feet of the new truth. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

I am. I'm rude because I don't conform to society's standards that white lies are inconsequential. I don't believe in hiding behind words that aren't truthful. I'm an impatient man. I don't beat around the bush. If you ask me something, I won't lie to you. — Whitney Barbetti

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

Pray for and work for fullness of life above every thing; full red blood in the body; full honesty and truth in the mind; and the fullness of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart. — Phillips Brooks

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

Were you raised in a barn? You don't just walk into someone's house." Ash laughed. "I have an open invitation to enter whenever I'm here." "Yeah, but what if he's naked or something?" Ash led him into the foyer. "I've known Kyrian for over two thousand years, and I can honesty say that I have never once caught him naked in his living room." The door closed behind them without Ash or Nick touching it- something that always unnerved Nick when Ash did it. "Besides, Rosa's still here. I know he's not walking around bare-assed with her on duty. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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 entire perks that I need are to let me do my job with full honesty to my conscience. — Amit Abraham

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 truth shouldn't be told only when it's convenient. Honesty must be a way of life. — Frank Sonnenberg

There were shadows in the corners and whispers on the stairs and time was irrelevant as honesty. — V.C. Andrews

I prefer to surround myself with people who reveal their imperfection, rather than people who fake their perfection. — Charles F. Glassman

The only people we want to blame are ourselves, because it will be ourselves that we rely upon. — Markus Zusak

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

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. — Thomas Jefferson

Let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate, independence; without it no man can be happy, nor even honest. — Junius

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

You hate me and I hate you, so at least we understand each other. — Ray Davies

I shall pursue a straight forward course deviating neither to the right or left so that comes what may I hope my real friends will never have to blush for me, so far as truth, honesty & fair dealings are concerned. — Zachary Taylor

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

Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull. — Salman Rushdie

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

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

You should have seen him," she said. "A real ladies' man. Stuff in his hair. Dark glasses. Fancy shoes. He had no idea how funny he looked. I much prefer men with ordinary shoes and honest trousers. — Alexander McCall Smith

I've been the lowest low on the planet, I've been a sinner all my days. And I was living with my hands on the trigger, I had no sense to change my ways. — Sting

Goodness, beauty, truthfulness, honesty, and being virtuous are the essence of the world. Whatever happens, the world will one day find this essence, for no one can prevent such an event — M. Fethullah Gulen

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

I think that in the last twenty years or so, there's been a new kind of honesty in painting where painters have been very proud of paint and have let it behave openly. — Robert Rauschenberg

I'm always going for truth and honesty. — Jill Soloway

To stay in places and to leave, to trust, to distrust, to no longer believe and believe again, ... to watch the snow come, to watch it go, to hear rain on a tent, to know where I can find what I want. — Ernest Hemingway,

Honesty, disinterestedness and good nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends. — Thomas Jefferson

It's the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It's only honesty makes it beautiful. — Elvin Jones

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

In this walk to freedom, we must, without question obtain hearts of honesty and a tongue of truthfulness. — The Tru Sum

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

I write incessantly, I'm very productive, I write for a dozen publications and blogs and websites. A lot of very hardcore political stuff. I write a weekly feature. I express myself. But when time comes to make music [with the] same absolutely unleashing of total honesty zero inhibitions, it just flows like a stream of conscientiousness because I will not be silenced no matter what my point might be. — Ted Nugent

Sure I find it very liberating and empowering now; but at first, it took me a while to get used to the uncomfortably vulnerable feeling that comes along with being honest. — Steve Maraboli

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

Lies can't grow. Once plucked they can only wither. But every truth, once planted, grows into a tall, noble tree. — Stefan Emunds

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

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

I've found that people reveal nothing of their true selves except within their art and their sin." ~ Dacey Sinnett, 'ROAM — Dez Schwartz

A piercing satire, a poignant family drama and an investigation of the competing claims of honesty, loyalty, ambition and love. — A.O. Scott

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

People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it. — Marissa Meyer

I think love can be really tough. Because it involves ultimately an honesty to the nth degree that you are capable of. Once said, you've lost your deposit. It's best if you don't say it. — John Hurt

My Mother

My mother was not educated but she was the best teacher I've ever had in my entire life. She had what it's called natural wisdom, bless her precious soul. Here some of her teachings: Human Values:
Love: Learn to love because everything that's based on love has a deep rooted foundation.
Kindness: Be kind all the time but never let anyone take advantage of your kindness.
Peace: Learn to have peace with yourself when the world turns against you because it starts with you.
Honesty: Be honest to yourself and then to the others.
Respect: Respect others and they will respect you.
Openness: Be always transparent especially when you are hurting. Never pretend that it's all okay.
Loyalty: Always be loyal to your family and make sure your family comes before anything else.
She taught me to learn to compose myself when life gets tough and unfair to me.

I love you mama & Happy Mothers Day — Euginia Herlihy

If you are honest with yourself, your life will be so much more pleasant. — Jessica Zafra

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

I want love, passion, honesty, and companionship ... sex that drives me crazy and conversation that drives me sane. — Steve Maraboli

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

America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all. — George W. Bush

I couldn't help but feel as if everyone had lied about everything. We all had secrets. We all had a dark side to our innocent cover. I wondered what we would be like, if we had been completely honest with each other in the first place. Maybe more people would be alive, but then again, more people could be dead. — Shannon A. Thompson

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

Not really in all honesty because until you take control of your own health and go to your own doctor and have your own doctor tell you what's going to work for you. — Star Jones

Be aware of things you say because words have power. When you speak truth. It's Beautiful. And, that beauty illuminates! — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

The only real and reliable guarantee for khadi would be honesty, truthfulness and sincerity of khadi workers. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

You don't need passwords, you don't want to check phones. Sometimes you only want the other person to just tell you the truth! — Manasa Rao

You can make the world beautiful just by refusing to lie about it. — Pleasefindthis

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

To truly be committed to a life of honesty, love and discipline, we must be willing to commit ourselves to reality. — John Bradshaw

They had learned the language of each other's ardor, and yet each time Ilyas found himself marvelling at the newness of this
this coupling without restriction, this open, carnal honesty. — Astrid Amara

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

Goe and catche a falling starre, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me, where all past yeares are, Or who cleft the Divel's foot. Teach me to hear Mermaides' singing, Or to keep of envies stinging, And finde What winde Serves to advance an honest minde. — John Donne

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

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. — Abraham Lincoln

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

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