Motivational Quotes

Honesty

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

- Thomas Jefferson

Best Quotes about Honesty

Successful people have cultivated the habit of never denying to themselves their true feelings and attitudes. They have no need for pretenses.

Fink, David Harold

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.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Maybe coming clean is the ultimate selfish act. A way to absolve yourself by hurting someone who doesn't deserve to be hurt.

Cindy Chupack

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.

Sophocles

Honesty prospers in every condition of life.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

There is no right way to do something wrong.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate now knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Nouwen, Henri

Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

On this mounting the scaffold to be beheaded: I pray you Master Lieutenant, see me safely up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself. To the executioner: Pick up thy spirits, Man, and be not afraid to do thy office; my neck is very short; take heed, therefore thou strike not awry, for saving of thy honesty.

10.

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

11.

It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

Walter Anderson

13.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

Samuel Butler

14.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest --that would be like a blind man willing to see.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

15.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Mark Twain

16.

Honesty shines like a light through your eyes.

17.

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

William Shakespeare

18.

When you accept yourself completely you do not have to maintain a phony front, drive yourself to achieve or feel insecure if people tune-in to you and what you are doing.

Keyes Jr., Ken

19.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Buscaglia, Leo

20.

There are two great forces in this world -- good and evil; and no man is worth his salt unless he has lost and won battle for a principle.

Gouthey, A. P.

21.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Kant, Immanuel

22.

Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.

Ash, Mary Kay

23.

The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.

Lyly, John

24.

Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.

Allen, James

25.

The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.

Euripides

26.

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

Churchill, Winston

27.

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.

Billings, Josh

28.

Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.

Landesberg, Steve

29.

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

Dodge, John F.

30.

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.

Sugarman, Joseph

31.

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

Hill, Napoleon

32.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.

Thomas Sowell

33.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

Mamet, David

34.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Thomas Jefferson

35.

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.

Iacocca, Lee

36.

Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty.

Plato

37.

Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.

Howard, Vernon

38.

Honest men are the soft easy cushions on which knaves repose and fatten.

Otway, Thomas

39.

People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.

Needham, Richard J.

40.

You can't make wrong work.

Waterhouse, Gerald

41.

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

Kin Hubbard

42.

To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.

Marden, Orison Swett

43.

If you follow only one rule, let it be this one: Be yourself. The really strong boy-girl relationships are based on what people really are, not on what they pretend to be.

44.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

Burns, Robert

45.

Oh for someone with a heart, head and hand. Whatever they call them, what do I care, aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, just be it one that can rule and dare not lie.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

46.

There is one way to find out if a man is honest; ask him! If he says yes you know he's crooked.

Marx, Groucho

47.

You can never lose anything that really belongs to you, and you can't keep that which belongs to someone else.

Cayce, Edgar

48.

I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.

Houston, Sam

49.

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.