A collection of quotes on the topic of honesty, use, people, doing.
The Reason and the objective of Education Reform
“Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway!”
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”
“There’s freedom in honesty. If you just face it today, tomorrow you can move on to something else.”
From interview with Amrita Mulchandani
God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)
Context: Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
“I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty.”
Letter to John Middleton Murry (5 August 1944), published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 (2000), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus
Context: Of course, fanatical Communists and Russophiles generally can be respected, even if they are mistaken. But for people like ourselves, who suspect that something has gone very wrong with the Soviet Union, I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual's point of view is really dangerous.
“Atheism is a natural result of intellectual honesty.”
Source: Book “Liberated from Religion: The Inestimable Pleasure of Being a Freethinker”
Source: Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God
“Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
Variant: Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 26, “Lanre Turned” (p. 203)
Context: “All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
No known source; also attributed to Susan Sarandon.[citation needed]
Disputed
“Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.”
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
1910s, The World Movement (1910)
Interview https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/02/27/inenglish/1519736544_699462.html, El País, 27/02/2018
“Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.”
Speech to Eastman College (1901)
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
“The most reasonable way of blessings and honesties will be obtained through opposing sensuality.”
Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 421.
Religious Wisdom
in SXSW 2007 <!-- 18:24 http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/14/bruce_sterling_s_sxsw_rant --> Bruce Sterling Rant (2007).
“Honesty is praised and starves.”
Probitas laudatur et alget
I, line 74.
Variant translation: Honesty is praised and is left out in the cold.
Satires, Satire I
Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
October 2016 when he was being Interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission [citation needed]
"How Not To Better Social Conditions" in Review of Reviews (January 1897), p. 39
1890s
1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "Our Moral Heritage"
"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)
Homilies on Timothy http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf113/Page_429.html, Homily VII
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.
Part II, Ch. XIII <!-- Sect. 4 -->
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part II
Context: Then Mr. Honest called for his friends, and said unto them, I die, but shall make no will. As for my honesty, it shall go with me; let him that comes after be told of this. When the day that he was to be gone was come, he addressed himself to go over the river. Now the river at that time over-flowed its banks in some places; but Mr. Honest, in his lifetime, had spoken to one Good-conscience to meet him there, the which he also did, and lent him his hand, and so helped him over. The last words of Mr. Honest were, Grace reigns! So he left the world.After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, "That his pitcher was broken at the fountain." When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?"
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 194
Context: To the gentle, many will be gentle; to the kind, many will be kind. A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts of others.
There are no blessings which the mind may not convert into the bitterest of evils; and no trials which it may not transform into the noblest and divinest blessings. There are no temptations from which assailed virtue may not gain strength, instead of falling before them, vanquished and subdued.
1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: I want to speak to you first of all as regards your duties as boys; and in the next place as regards your duties as men; and the two things hang together. The same qualities that make a decent boy make a decent man. They have different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and common-sense he is a pretty poor creature; and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33, as translated by Pierre Antoine Motteux in The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1701)
Variant translations:
I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes; and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.
Honesty's the best policy.
Context: I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list. I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes. I know where the shoe wrings me. I will know who and who is together. Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.
Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi
Context: The spectacle of to-morrow is one of agony. Wise men make laughable efforts to determine what may be, in the ages to come, the cause of the inhabited world's end. Will it be a comet, the rarefaction of water, or the extinction of the sun, that will destroy mankind? They have forgotten the likeliest and nearest cause — Suicide.
They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy and limited mentality of the assassins themselves.
The shapeless struggle of the elements will begin again on the seared earth when men have slain themselves because they were slaves, because they believed the same things, because they were alike.
1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other. It shall profit us nothing if our people are decent and ineffective. It shall profit us nothing if they are efficient and wicked. In every walk of life, in business, politics; if the need comes, in war; in literature, science, art, in everything, what we need is a sufficient number of men who can work well and who will work with a high ideal. The work can be done in a thousand different ways. Our public life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy public positions for the moment, because they are but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public life depends upon men who take an active interest in that public life; who are bound to see public affairs honestly and competently managed; but who have the good sense to know what honesty and competency actually mean. And any such man, if he is both sane and high-minded, can be a greater help and strength to any one in public life than you can easily imagine without having had yourselves the experience. It is an immense strength to a public man to know a certain number of people to whom he can appeal for advice and for backing; whose character is so high that baseness would shrink ashamed before them; and who have such good sense that any decent public servant is entirely willing to lay before them every detail of his actions, asking only that they know the facts before they pass final judgment.
Christianity and Power Politics (1936)
Context: In the simple and decadent individualism of the Oxford group movement there is no understanding of the fact that the man of power is always to a certain degree an anti-Christ. "All power," said Lord Acton with cynical realism, "corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If the man of power were to take a message of absolute honesty and absolute love seriously he would lose his power, or would divest himself of it. This is not to imply that the world can get along without power and that it is not preferable that men of conscience should wield it rather than scoundrels. But if men of power had not only conscience but also something of the gospel's insight into the intricacies of social sin in the world, they would know that they could never extricate themselves completely from the sinfulness of power, even while they were wielding it ostensibly for the common good. (Chapter 29: "Hitler and Buchman")
Book III, 3.10-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
“Schopenhauer as educator” ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher"), § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)
As quoted in an interview with newspaper Arguments and Facts (1987), " 'Almost everyone can forgive us for honesty': the rules of life of Viktor Tsoi, who passed away 29 years ago" in Forum Daily https://www.forumdaily.com/en/nam-za-chestnost-mogut-prostit-prakticheski-vse-pravila-zhizni-viktora-coya-ushedshego-29-let-nazad/ (15 August 2019)
“Honesty is the only sign of those who expect nothing from anyone.”
“He said, 'Hi, gorgeous,' which I think is nice. I admire honesty.”
Source: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God
“Maybe my expectations for honesty are too high.”
Source: The Calling
“Respect, Honesty, Courage, Rectitude, Loyalty, Honour, Benevolence”
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
“Honesty is always the best policy, even when it's not the trend.”
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide
“Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.”
“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”
Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
“Honesty and openness is always the foundation of insightful dialogue.”
Source: All About Love: New Visions
“Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen to it carefully.”
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.”
Quote from People, 27 September 1976
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1971 - 1980
“Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.”
"Rungs of the Ladder" http://books.google.com/books?id=HLpRc3rm5b8C, BBC Radio broadcast, 11 July 1932
1930s
“Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?”
“If either wealth or poverty are come by honesty, there is no shame.”
“Honesty is always good, except when it's better to lie.”
Variant: We is always so much better than I.
Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas
Illusions
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Source: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Magic Bleeds
“Life demands honesty, the ability to face, admit, and express oneself.”
Source: The 48 Laws of Power
“I told you I wanted to live in a world in which the antidote to shame is not honor, but honesty.”
Source: The Argonauts
“Honesty in principle was one thing. In someone’s face, it was another.”
Source: Just Listen
“The most boring thing in the entire world is nudity. The second most boring thing is honesty.”
Source: Invisible Monsters
