Honesty Quotes

Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.

~ Patricia Highsmith

The truth is everything in the end. It is the greatest power in the world to make all people equal. If everyone knows what the truth is, no one can use lies to separate those people and turn them against one another.

~ Mel Odom

Gimme an honest frown over a false smile, any day.

~ Gregory David Roberts

Life is warped. I'm just in sync.

~ Margaret Atwood

Shamelessness is not the same as honesty.

~ James Poniewozik

I got over shy a really long time ago. I'm queer, I'm feline, get used to it.

~ Andrea Speed

There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum.

~ Isaac Asimov

I speak my mind. If it offends some people, well, there's not much I can do about that. But I'm going to be honest. I'm going to continue to speak my mind, and that's who I am...

~ Jesse Ventura

You surely remember your past when you rebuke me in honesty.

~ Toba Beta

Honestly, Bob: how do you carve a scream?

~ Ilsa J. Bick

The prudent man is always sincere, and feels horror at the very thought of exposing himself to the disgrace which attends upon the detection of falsehood. But though always sincere, he is not always frank and open; and though he never tells any thing but the truth, he does not always think himself bound, when not properly called upon, to tell the whole truth. As he is cautious in his actions, so he is reserved in his speech; and never rashly or unnecessarily obtrudes his opinion concerning either things or persons.

~ Adam Smith

Just be yourself. An original is worth more than a copy.

~ Suzy Kassem

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don't have brains enough to be honest.

~ Benjamin Franklin

A better man wouldn’t play this ‘sweethearts’ game with her when he knew very well it couldn’t lead to more.But he wasn’t a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue—and damn it, he couldn’t resist. He wanted to amuse her, spoil her, feed her sweets and delicacies. Steal a kiss or two, when she wasn’t expecting it. He wanted to be a besotted young buck squiring his girl around the fair.In other words, he wanted to live honestly. Just for the day.

~ Tessa Dare

I’d rather have a cup of coffee and a cigarette than live in all that honesty.

~ Benjamin Alire Sáenz

It’s better to be sworn to an honest fool than to a lying scholar

~ Christopher Paolini

It's not cruelty, maybe, but a desire to understand that motivates them.

~ Veronica Roth

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

~ Albert Einstein

Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest. William Gaddis, The Recognitions.

~ William Gaddis

Honesty: what a refreshing slap in the face it is.

~ T.m. Brenner

Things work out better when you're straight up.

~ Kate Jacobs

It's honest to admit you'll kill someone because you hate them.

~ Fuyumi Soryo

Is the prison that Mr. Scoundrel lives in at the end of his career a more uncomfortable place than the workhouse that Mr. Honesty lives in at the end of his career?

~ Wilkie Collins

It is a great evil to look upon mankind with too clear vision. You seem to be living among wild beasts, and you become a wild beast yourself. (“The Story of Prince Alasi and the Princess Firouzkah”)

~ William Beckford

She'd tried her hand at most things, but drew the line at honesty.

~ Roddy Doyle

For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people.

~ Plutarch

I guess we speak pretty loosely, don't we, about looking forward to the Ashes and all that—and we are, but it's not with both eyes. We've got one eye on that and one eye on what we need to get in place to make sure we're the best team we can be for November.

~ Ricky Ponting

(I)f you're not honest with yourself, life will never be honest with you.

~ Leigh Brackett

...his respect, hard enough to earn in the first place, was all but impossible to win back after it was lost.

~ Becky Allen

And everyone lived happily, thought maybe not completely honestly, ever after. The End.

~ Jon Scieszka

Until a few months ago we had a code of honor, and even the worst ruffians behaved with decency. You could leave your gold in a tent with no guard and no one would touch it, but now all that has changed. The law of the jungle rules, the only ideology is greed. Don't let yourself be parted from your weapons, and always travel in pairs or groups, because this is a land of thieves.

~ Isabel Allende

I'm fully aware that some of the stuff I write is going to offend people or p*ss them off. They should be fully aware that I don't really care.

~ Briana Blair

Some people come to Morganville and collapse,” Michael said as he put the car in motion. “I’ve seen it a dozen times. But there are a few who come here and just—bloom. You’re one of those.” Claire didn’t feel especially bloomy. “So you’re saying I thrive on chaos.

~ Rachel Caine

Sure, I liked girls but I was always too terrified to speak to them unless we were arguing or I was calling them stupidos, which was one of my favorite words that year.

~ Junot Díaz

But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people, at that rate, to be understood?

~ Jane Austen

Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use.

~ Clarence Darrow

Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either.

~ Walter Scott

In wine is truth, and the truth had all come out, that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse and envious heart!

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He came to chat with me the day of my being discharged, advising that I not stay at the dog fight until the last dog was dead. I was a kid and made little counsel. Now that I am a bigger kid, I see the value--belatedly--added. Yet I also see the loss of life in the protecting, first of all, of oneself. Better to give oneself away. Dead f*ck the dog and so on.

~ Gordon Lish

Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund