Fundamental Values Project

Quotes on Honesty

I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you're trying to accomplish and what you're willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.
-- Lee Iacocca

I am a big believer in the 'mirror test.' All that matters is if you can look in the mirror and honestly tell the person you see there, that you've done your best.
-- John McKay

Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
-- F. M. Hubbard

Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.
-- Unknown

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
-- Arthur C. Clarke

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.
-- George Washington

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
-- Gandhi

One word of truth outweighs the whole world.
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Honesty is not something to flirt with. We must be married to it.
-- Anon

One falsehood spoils a thousand truths.
-- African Proverb

Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.
-- Mark Twain

The Truth requires action.
-- Mason Weaver

The truth of a matter will always haunt you, no matter how secret the hiding place.
-- Anon

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.
-- Thomas Jefferson

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.
-- John Ruskin

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
-- Spencer Johnson

Do not do what you would undo if caught.
-- Leah Arendt

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
-- Robert Burns

There is no twilight zone of honesty in business. A thing is right or it's wrong. It's black or it's white.
-- John F. Dodge

Don't measure your neighbor's honesty by your own.
-- American Proverb

Honest hearts produce honest actions.
-- Brigham Young

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
-- William Shakespeare

Each time you are honest and conduct yourself with honesty, a success force will drive you toward greater success. Each time you lie, even with a little white lie, there are strong forces pushing you toward failure.
-- Joseph Sugarman

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!
-- Sir Walter Scott

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.
-- Sir Francis Bacon

The elegance of honesty needs no adornment.
-- Merry Browne

Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.
-- Chilton

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
--Mark Twain

Who lies for you will lie against you.
--Bosnian Proverb

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
--Henry Louis Mencken,

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.
--Abraham Lincoln

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.
--Thomas Carlyle

A half truth is a whole lie.
--Yiddish Proverb

A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.
--Charles Edward Montague

Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color--blind.
-- Austin O'Malley

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
-- William Blake

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
-- Aristotle

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.
-- George Herbert

With lies you may get ahead in the world -- but you can never go back.
-- Russian proverb

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess.
-- Josh Billings

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
- -Ambrose Bierce

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.
-- Edgar J. Mohn

When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.
-- Bill Copeland

Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.
--Lemuel K. Washburn

A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.
--Author Unknown

We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.
--Tad Williams

Truth fears no questions.
--Unknown

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
--Thomas Jefferson

There is no well--defined boundary between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other.
--O. Henry.

Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children. --Oliver Wendell

The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always. --R.D. Laing

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. --Winston Churchill

Respect for the truth is an acquired taste. --Mark Van Doren

The truth is more important than the facts. --Frank Lloyd Wright

Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited. --James Cardinal Gibbons

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying. --Michel de Montaigne

Beware of the half truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half. --Author Unknown

When truth is divided, errors multiply. --Eli Siegel

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it. --Emily Dickinson

No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.
--William Congreve

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
--Adlai Stevenson

The truth is the only thing worth having, and, in a civilized life, like ours, where so many risks are removed, facing it is almost the only courageous thing left to do. --E.V. Lucas

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is -- "Let there be truth between us two forevermore." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Often, the surest way to convey information is to tell the strict truth. --Mark Twain

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. --Oscar Wilde

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. --Robert Brault
The truth needs so little rehearsal. --Barbara Kingsolver

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. --Mark Twain

Some people will not tolerate such emotional honesty in communication. They would rather defend their dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others. Therefore, having rationalized their phoniness into nobility, they settle for superficial relationships. --Author Unknown

It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen. --"Homer Simpson," from the television show The Simpsons

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. --Mark Twain

Always tell the truth. If you can't always tell the truth, don't lie. --Author Unknown

I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't. --Mark Twain