Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
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:
Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, insincerity is the most dangerous.
"Honesty is the best policy;" but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man.
You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?
He carries a stone in one hand, and offers bread with the other.
It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination.
Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you.
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
And some before the speaker.
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.
Gold thou mayest safely touch, but if it stick
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick.