This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"Courtesy, kindness, sincerity, truthfulness, thoughtfulness and good manners translated into behavior reflect one's true character." - Harry F. Banks, real name possibly Harry Band
"Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age; its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity and future shame. It degrades parts and learning obscures the luster of every accomplishment and sinks us into contempt. The path of falsehood is a perplexing maze. After the first departure from sincerity, it is not in our power to stop; one artifice unavoidably leads on to another, till, as the intricacy of the labyrinth increases, we are left entangled in our snare." - Hugh Blair
"Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very essence of friendship." - William Ellery Channing
"The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour." -
"Sincerity is the face of the soul, as dissimulation is the mask." - Joseph Sanial-Dubay
"Sincerity is no test of truth - no evidence of correctness of conduct. You may take poison sincerely believing it the needed medicine, but will it save your life?" - Tyron Edwards
"Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses itself any reaction with regard to itself or its deeds. This virtue differs from and surpasses sincerity. We see many people who are sincere without being simple. They do not wish to be taken for other than what they are; but they are always fearing lest they should be taken for what they are not." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
"In dealings between man and man, truth, sincerity and integrity are of the utmost importance to the felicity of life." - Benjamin Franklin
"Without sincerity, manners are mere apish bowing and scraping." - K'ang-Hsi NULL
"Sincerity makes an untruth seem like a truth, while insincerity makes a truth seem like an untruth." - Israel Salanter Lipkin
"Affectation in any part of our carriage is lighting up a candle to see our defects, and never fails to make us taken notice of, either as wanting sense or sincerity." - John Locke
"The only conclusive evidence of a man’s sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth whatever it may be, has taken possession of him." - James Russell Lowell
"Judge thyself with a judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with a judgment of charity." - James Madison Mason
"Judge thyself with the judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with the judgment of charity." - John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason
"Sincerity goes farther than capacity." - William Penn
"The attributes of a great lady may still be found in the rule of the four S's: Sincerity, Simplicity, Sympathy and Serenity." - Emily Post, born Emily Price
"The measure of a man is not determined by his show of outward strength or the volume of his voice or the thunder of his action. It is to be seen rather in terms of the strength of his inner self in terms of the nature and depth of his commitments the sincerity of his purpose and his willingness to continue "growing up."" - Grady Poulard
"It is undoubtedly true that some people mistake sycophancy for good nature, but it is equally true that man more mistake impertinence for sincerity." - George Dennison Prentice
"The technical progress of industry has been a reflection of our ability to apply increasingly accurate methods of measurement to material things. The art of measuring psychological human dimensions is relatively undeveloped. To all of the complexities of management we must bring to bear infinite patience and persistence, consistency and complete sincerity." - Louis Ruthenburg
"Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury
"Sincerity is the fulfillment of our own nature, and to arrive at it we need only follow our true self. Sincerity is the beginning and end of existence; without it, nothing can endure. Therefore the mature person values sincerity above all things." - Tzu-Ssu or Zisi, born Kong Ji NULL
"Sincerity plus thoughtfulness is everything." - Yukteswar, fully Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, born Priyanath Karar NULL
"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus; it move stones and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes not victories without it." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Set the course of your life by the three stars - sincerity, courage and unselfishness. From these flow a host of other virtues. He who follows them will obtain the highest type of success, that which lies in the esteem of others." - Monroe E. Deutsch, fully Monroe Emanuel Deutsch
"Whether a prophet is true or false does not depend upon the correctness of his predictions. It depends upon the purity and sincerity of his concern for the things threatened by human sin and divine anger. Indeed his predictions are the more likely to be correct, the less he is a true prophet and the more affinities he has within himself to the destructive tendencies of his age." - Erich Heller
"You may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma." - James Russell Lowell
"Sincerity and honesty carry one through many difficulties which all the arts he can invent would never help him through." - Edward Stillingfleet
"There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot be gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
"In your daily life, you can treat people you meet in a way that strengthens them in spirit through genuine interest or respect… not a patronizing or false sense of sincerity… but rather a genuine curiosity and respect for each individual you meet… Your actions do make a lasting impact on each person you encounter. It’s an enormous responsibility to take seriously how you treat the people in your life, and a great joy to know you have acted with caring, warmth, and love." - Leonard Felder
"Six essential qualities that are the key to success: sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity." - William Menninger, fully William Claire Menninger
"To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject." - Albert Einstein
"Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated." - Howard Nemerov
"How could sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing." - Albert Camus
"The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
"The true hypocrite is one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
"Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart. I set it down as a fact that if all men know what each said to the other, there would not be four friends in the world." - Blaise Pascal
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Five things constitute perfect virtue: gravity, magnanimity, earnestness, sincerity, kindness." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has any one who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL