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Honesty Quotes
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, A Little Book in C
Major, 1916
If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain
Who lies for you will lie against you. ~Bosnian Proverb
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, Disenchantment
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, "Auguries of Innocence," Poems from the Pickering
Manuscript
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
~Aristotle
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, and yet all the honesty in
the world ain’t lawful tender for a loaf of bread. ~Josh Billings
The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff. ~Ambrose
Bierce
When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback. ~Bill Copeland
Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it. ~Mark
Twain
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
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and
posthumously. ~Thomas Sowell
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
The truth is more important than the facts. ~Frank Lloyd Wright
Respect for the truth is an acquired taste. ~Mark Van Doren, Liberal
Education, 1943
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
When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. ~Rospo Pallenberg
and John Boorman, Excalibur, based on Le Morte d’Arthurby Thomas Malory
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its
pants on. ~Winston Churchill
It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory
should never take upon him the trade of lying. ~Michel de Montaigne,
translated
People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality
than out of the honesty. ~Richard J. Needham
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I
suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships. ~Bertrand
Russell
Honesty pays, but it don’t seem to pay enough to suit some people. ~Frank
McKinney "Kin" Hubbard
Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to
tell you a loving lie. ~Robert Brault
It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no
antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts
absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the
quotidian. ~John Updike
~William Congreve
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this,
except that it ain’t so. ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935
Reality is bad enough. Why should I tell the truth? ~Patrick Sky
Always tell the truth. Even if you have to make it up. ~Author Unknown
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 misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
~Mark Twain, Following the Equator
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
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its
shoes. ~Mark Twain
Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished
lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks. ~Lin Yutang
Always tell the truth. If you can’t always tell the truth, don’t lie. ~Author
Unknown