One of the earliest things we learn as a child is, to be honest. Whenever we were caught in a lie, our parents always remind us to be accurate and to value their trust. No good parent would want their child to grow up a liar. Honesty must be practiced at all times.
If we lived in an honest world, corrupt politicians, cheating partners, and deceit wouldn’t exist. Trusting strangers wouldn’t be a risky activity, and we wouldn’t have to worry about swindlers and two-faced friends. Wouldn’t you prefer to live in that world?
Here we have collected several of the most famous and inspirational honesty quotes that will remind you why honesty is the best policy.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.— Groucho Marx
I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.— George Bernard Shaw
All stories should have some honesty and truth in them, otherwise you’re just playing about.— Nigel Kneale
I think the number one thing that I find important is the importance of honesty with your friends and your parents, if you can be. But I think that telling people how you really feel, being who you truly are, being safe and taking care of yourself is the most important thing.— Emma Stone
Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.— Stephen Leacock
Honesty will never break you.— Kate Hudson
Honesty is the cruelest game of all, because not only can you hurt someone – and hurt them to the bone – you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time.— Dave Van Ronk
With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.— Samuel E. Morison
I think my confidence stems from my honesty. I’m brutally honest – about everything and even myself. I tell it as I think it. I’m not politically correct. I’m definitely not diplomatic. I get bashed up for what I say, but I don’t know any other way.— Alia Bhatt
Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.— Richard Bach
I’m a firm believer in absolute honesty.— Frank Langella
We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.— Michelle Obama
To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.— John Ruskin
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.— Plato
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
Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.— William Shakespeare
A sarcastic person has a superiority complex that can be cured only by the honesty of humility.— Lawrence G. Lovasik
Even if you know that what you’ll say will hurt a woman’s feelings, I’ve learned that it’s better to be truthful with her than it is to cover up. Ultimate honesty is what a relationship is really about.— Stephen Moyer
If money, education, and honesty will not bring to me as much privilege, as much equality as they bring to any American citizen, then they are to me a curse, and not a blessing.— John Hope
Honesty is as rare as a man without self-pity.— Stephen Vincent Benet
Coming out is a means of redefining oneself, of claiming membership in a lifestyle and a social order with distinct values. Chief among these values is honesty.— Lance Loud
A friend to honesty and a foe to crime.— Allan Pinkerton
Honesty is the most single most important factor having a direct bearing on the final success of an individual, corporation, or product.— Ed McMahon
The important things are children, honesty, integrity and faith.— Andy Williams
The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.— George Burns
I believe honesty comes across in music because for people that music isn’t just something to dance to. For people for whom music is something that they feel, they understand what I’m talking about.— Willa Ford
Anything well written with good language and clarity and honesty is worth doing. It comes out of the same tradition as Shakespeare.— Michael Moriarty
Men are as we have always known them, neither better nor worse from the hearts of rogues there springs a latent honesty, from the depths of honest men there emerges a brutish appetite – a thirst for extermination, a desire for blood.— Frederica Montseny
That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.— Meredith Monk
I’d much rather have the honesty than not. Because if you will say what’s on your mind and get it off your chest, then the sooner I can prove you wrong!— Garth Brooks
Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.— Freeman Thomas
Goodness is about character – integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.— Dennis Prager
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.— Plutarch
Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There’s no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn’t a gift. It’s a responsibility.— Dalton Trumbo
No legacy is so rich as honesty.— William Shakespeare
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.— Zig Ziglar
Honesty prospers in every condition of life.— Friedrich Schiller
That’s a wonderful thing, because one of the primary qualities of a good performance is honesty.— Roberta Flack
Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get.— Samuel E. Morison
I feel honesty always works.— Bobby Unser
Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.— Lemuel K. Washburn
I look for these qualities and characteristics in people. Honesty is number one, respect, and absolutely the third would have to be loyalty.— Summer Altice
I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.— Anthony Trollope
Honesty is very sexy.— Valerie Bertinelli
Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.— Lao Tzu
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
You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day that these words constitute the principle of your entire life and that with the help of divine grace you will observe these solemn vows that today, before God, you formulate.— Pope John Paul II
The person who is brutally honest enjoys the brutality quite as much as the honesty. Possibly more.— Richard J. Needham
What makes a woman beautiful is her loyalty to and her friendships with other women, and her honesty with men.— Vanessa Marcil
Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others – how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself.— Ang Lee
Party honesty is party expediency.— Grover Cleveland
Honesty pays, but it doesn’t seem to pay enough to suit some people.— Kin Hubbard
Confidence in others’ honesty is no light testimony of one’s own integrity.— Michel de Montaigne
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.— Margaret Fuller
Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.— Don Marquis
The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.— John Lyly
The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.— George Oppen
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.— Salvador Dali
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.— John Quincy Adams
Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.— Sallust
Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.— Franklin D. Roosevelt
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.— Samuel Johnson
The greatest truth is honesty, and the greatest falsehood is dishonesty.— Abu Bakr
I have built my reputation on honesty, I have sometimes been too honest.— David Blunkett
Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest, I never feel stupid. And when I am honest, I am automatically humble.— Hugh Prather
Honesty does not always bring a response of love, but it is absolutely essential to it.— Ray Blanton
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.— Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is all you need.— Cass Elliot
Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.— Mary Kay Ash
I think there’s a form of honesty, because I used to be very honest with the press, and then it backfired on me, and I understood it.— Shia LaBeouf
And, because there was an honesty about all that was going on. It connected with the people in the street.— Ben E. King
I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business.— Harvey S. Firestone
Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.— Adrienne Rich
Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.— Andrew Carnegie
I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise.— Jane Fonda
Industry, economy, honesty, and kindness form a quartet of virtues that will never be improved upon.— James Oliver
Irony is just honesty with the volume cranked up.— George Saunders
Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable.— Leo Burnett
Honesty is the best policy.— Benjamin Franklin
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.— John Steinbeck
Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.— Henry Fielding
Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.— Alan Arkin
The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.— Robert E. Lee
For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.— Charles Baudelaire
He that loseth his honesty hath nothing else to lose.— John Lyly
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.— Judith Martin
Honesty is as much saying everything as it is saying what is true.— Richard Snelling
As a governor and senator, John Chafee set the standard for honesty and decency that the rest of us on our best days could only dream to emulate.— John McCain
Honesty is something you can’t wear out.— Waylon Jennings
Acting is all about truth and honesty, and the sensitivity that’s capable of transporting you.— Thomas Kretschmann
True country music is honesty, sincerity, and real life to the hilt.— Garth Brooks
It’s about communication. It’s about honesty. It’s about treating people in the organization as deserving to know the facts. You don’t try to give them half the story. You don’t try to hide the story. You treat them as – as true equals, and you communicate and you communicate and communicate.— Lou Gerstner
The elegance of honesty needs no adornment.— Merry Browne
In all honesty, I’m not able to talk about contracts. It’s nothing with ‘American Idol’ in particular, it’s just things I really need to take care of in my life.— Mario Vazquez
Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life – all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity.— Zig Ziglar
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.— Nathaniel Hawthorne