Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Honesty

"It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second." -

"“Honesty is the best policy,” but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man." -

"If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are." -

"The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, cunning, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment – or at least much handicap – to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need." - Michael Parenti

"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

"The human being is so constructed that he pressed toward fuller and fuller being and this means pressing toward what most people would call good values, toward serenity, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness, and goodness." - Abraham Harold Maslow

"Kindness and honesty can be expected only from the strong." - Author Unknown NULL

"The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade." - Ben Jonson

"Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage." - Ben Jonson

"For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation." - Charles Baudelaire

"It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The number-one thing young people in American - indeed, young people around the world - have going for them is their sense of honesty, morality, and ethics. Young people refuse to accept the lies and rationalizations of the established order." - Dick Gregory

"Honesty is the best policy." - English Proverbs

"A school where you've got good character education is one where the culture of the school puts a high premium on respect, honesty, and kids being responsible for their actions and adults doing the same." - Esther Schaeffer

"Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your reputation. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Undertake not what you cannot perform, be be careful to keep your promise. There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and pursue it steadily. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy nation." - George Washington

"Honesty is beter than all policy." - Immanuel Kant

"Honesty is better than any policy." - Immanuel Kant

"The true measure of life is not length, but honesty." - John Lyly or Lilly or Lylie

"He that loseth his honesty hath nothing else to lose." - John Lyly or Lilly or Lylie

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

"Honesty is praised while it starves." - Latin Proverbs

"The root of honesty is an honest intention, the distinct and deliberate purpose to be true, to handle facts as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Facts lend themselves to manipulation. Many a butcher’s hand is worth more than its weight in gold. What we want things to be, we come to see them to be; and the tailor pulls the coat and the truth into a perfect fit from his point of view." - Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock

"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?" - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

"Honesty’s the best policy." -

"If persons are going to be independent thinkers, they are probably going to pay a cost. One has to begin with the way the world works: the world does not reward honesty and independence, it rewards obedience and service. It's a world of concentrated power, and those who have power are not going to reward people who question that power." - Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky

"You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth. I look upon the simple and child-like virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is sublime in character." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No matter how idealistic our hopes... we eventually learn that spirituality is not about leaving life's problems behind, but about continually confronting them with honesty and courage. It is about ending our feeling of separation from others by healing our relationships with parents, co-workers, and friends. it is about bringing heightened awareness and compassion to our family life, careers, and community service." - Ronald S. Miller

"Integrity is telling yourself the truth. Honesty is telling the truth to other people." - Spencer Johnson

"No honest Man ever repented of his Honesty." - Thomas Fuller

"Simplicity deepens life. It magnifies the simple virtues on which man’s survival depends: humility, faith, courage, serenity, honesty, patience, justice, tolerance, thrift. Simplicity is the arrow of the spirit." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

"Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves." - William Hazlitt

"Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap." - William Hazlitt

"No legacy is so rich as honesty." -

"A person who is a truth seeker and readily admits his mistakes will gain both the respect of others and will ultimately have more self-respect. Instead of looking at admitting mistakes as a sign of weakness, look at it as a manifestation of intellectual honesty." - Zelig Pliskin

"Experience is the common school-house of fools and ill men. Men of wit and honesty be otherwise instructed. " - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

"Children learn what they live. If children live with criticism,they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with fear,they learn to be apprehensive. If children live with pity,they learn to feel sorry for themselves. If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy. If children live with jealousy,they learn what envy is. If children live with shame,they learn to feel guilty. If children live with tolerance,they learn to be patient. If children live with encouragement,they learn to be confident. If children live with praise,they learn to appreciate. If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves. If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world. If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal. If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous. If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are. If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and those around them. If children live with friendliness, they learn that the world is a nice place in which to live. If children live with serenity, they learn to have a peace of mind. With what are your children living? " -

"Children learn what they live. If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive. If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves. If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy. If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is. If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty. If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient. If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident. If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate. If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves. If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world. If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal. If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous. If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are. If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and those around them. If children live with friendliness, they learn that the world is a nice place in which to live. If children live with serenity, they learn to have a peace of mind. With what are your children living?" - Dorothy Law Nolte

"Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another....The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself." - Duane Elgin

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. " - Groucho Marx, Pseudonym for Julius Henry Marx

"I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business. " - Harvey Samuel Firestone

"While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"There ought to be more scrupulous honesty in big business men than in any other human relation. For big business requires teamwork on a gigantic scale." - Henry Latham Doherty

"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people. " - John Adams

"The more honesty a man has the less he affects the air of a saint." - Laberius, full name Decimus Laberius NULL

"How frequently is the honesty and integrity of man disposed of by a smile or shrug! How many good and generous actions have been sunk into oblivion by a distrustful look, or stamped of proceeding from bad motives, by a mysterious and seasonable whisper!" - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

"The notion of saving the planet has nothing to do with intellectual honesty or science. The fact is that the planet was here long before us and will be here long after us. The planet is running fine. What people are talking about is saving themselves and saving their middle-class lifestyles and saving their cash flow." - Lynn Margulis

"Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical." -