Honesty Quotes
By count, Shakespeare is far ahead of the next writers, Solomon, George Herbert and Mark Twain. The sourced lines lean toward sincerity, not honesty as such, and they are not what a poster would use. Wilde, in The Critic as Artist (1891), says a little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. Martin Luther King Jr., in Strength to Love (1963), says nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Shaw’s remark that there is no love sincerer than the love of food appears here and under Food.
The only flagged entry is “It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver,” credited to Machiavelli and marked misattributed.
Most quoted on honesty:
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.
Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?
Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate in adhering to an opinion once adopted.