Skip to content

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.

Random quote on Honesty

Most quoted on honesty:

I never lie, even to this day. Not even a little. Unless you count playing pranks on people, which I don't. That's comedy. Entertainment doesn't count. A joke is different from a lie, even if the difference is kind of subtle.

Steve Wozniak iWoz (2006)

That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies;
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright—
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.

Buckminster Fuller Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975)

Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society. Where there is no truth, there can be no trust, and where there is no trust, there can be no society. Where there is society, there is trust, and where there is trust, there is something upon which it is supported.

Frederick Douglass

Which I wish to remark,—
And my language is plain,—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.

Bret Harte The Heathen Chinee (1870)

Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can thoroughly depend — who will stand firm when others fail — the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous; in such an one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages — a sign that there has been a prophet amongst us.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

In short, honesty is more than a moral principle. It is also a major economic factor. While government can do little to create honesty directly, in various ways it can indirectly either support or undermine the traditions on which honest conduct is based.

Thomas Sowell

The truthfulness which Jesus demands from his followers is the self-abnegation which does not hide sin. Nothing is then hidden, everything is brought forth to the light of day. In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Discipleship (1937)

The temper I am of requires me to keep away from court. Heaven, when it sent me into the world, did not give me a soul suited to the air of courts. I do not find in myself the virtues necessary to succeed, and make my fortune there. My chief talent is to be frank and sincere.

Molière

Sentir mon Cœur is a privilege only granted to the exceptional man — the one who has the ability to find words that exactly (or, to himself, convincingly) express his feelings. … The value of words help to define the feeling itself. … The common failure is to allow habitual words and phrases, flowing spontaneously from the memory, to determine and deform the feelings.

Herbert Read The Cult of Sincerity (1969)

Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.

Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution. A History (1837)

The world is still deceiv'd with ornament,
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

William Shakespeare

A few honest men are better than numbers.

Oliver Cromwell

We can love an honest rogue, but what is more offensive than a false saint?

Jessamyn West

Integrity in the Moment of Choice
Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Stephen Covey

What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference.

Walter Hilton The Ladder of Perfection (1494)

Honesty is the axis on which leadership spins.

Mike Pence

But veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls.

George Eliot Romola (1863)

If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women.

Jack Nicholson

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

Sigmund Freud

Related topics