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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:

Those who conduct themselves with morality, integrity and consistency need not fear the forces of inhumanity and cruelty.

Nelson Mandela

There’s more leg room in first class, to be sure, but there’s more poetry in second class—and more honesty in third.

Michael Kurland Ten Little Wizards (1988)

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

Lily Tomlin Modern Scream (1975)

An honest man nearly always thinks justly.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Felt the virtues of the Victorian times so condemned by Mr Strachey. The simple honesties can always be made a butt by the impish unrealiabilites.

Ramsay MacDonald

Sometimes honesty was its own reward, said Solomon, but Dodger thought it helped if some money came with it.

Terry Pratchett Dodger (2012)

The louder a man tells you he’s honest, the harder you must hold onto your purse.

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven (1993)

I look at the lyrics, and if that's something honest for me at the moment, I'll sing it.

Ysabella Brave

Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.

Solomon

If he were
To be made honest by an act of parliament
I should not alter in my faith of him.

Ben Jonson The Devil Is an Ass (1616)

There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man—but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.

Ludwig Wittgenstein Culture and Value (1980)

Honesty is the best policy; a policy is, after all, a strategy for living in the polis — in the city …

Samuel R. Delany The Mad Man (1994)

Li was a very honest and honorable man. But when it came to any man’s abiding passion, honesty occasionally went straight out the nearest available window.

Robert Asprin Ripping Time (2000)

It must be that all honest people are in the galleys; only knaves are to be met with elsewhere.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot Posthumous Manuscripts (1878)

A sovereign shows himself to be a tyrant if he disregards his honest advisors, or punishes them for what they have said.

Michel Foucault Fearless Speech (2001)

I speak my mind. If it offends some people, well, there's not much I can do about that. But I'm going to be honest. I'm going to continue to speak my mind, and that's who I am...

Jesse Ventura

It is not enough to say he was a revered civil rights icon. He was a man of impeccable integrity who dedicated his life to fighting against racism, discrimination & injustice. John was a true leader who inspired us all to have the courage to fight.

Maxine Waters

To the cheater, there is no such thing as honesty, and to Republicans the idea of serving the public good is counterfeit on the face of it — they never felt such an urge, and therefore it must not exist.

Garrison Keillor Homegrown Democrat : A Few Plain Thoughts From the Heart of America (2004)

We owe it to everybody in our party to be honest about where we stand.

Jo Cox We nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Now we regret it (2016)

And some who were not elegant said: “He is too elegant to be honest.” And some who were not tall said: “He is too tall to be trusted,” and some who were intuitive shuddered, though they were not sure why.

Tanith Lee Delusion's Master (1981)

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