Quotes about honesty

“I don’t pretend to be anything but a soldier,” growled Galt.

“And it’s precisely that that makes you dangerous in negotiations,” replied William. “Politicians and businessmen always feel more at home with someone who they know doesn’t mean what he says. Honest men always have been a curse laid upon the sharpshooter.”

“A pity,” put in Anea, “that there aren’t enough honest men, then, to curse them all.”

Perhaps he was a bumpkin; at least he was an honest bumpkin.

People may point to all of this as evidence that we humans are becoming more honest and truthful, but human nature does not change within a few generations. People have become more obvious and forthright not out of some deep moral calling but out of increasing self-absorption and overall laziness. It requires no effort to simply be oneself or to blast one’s message. And the lack of effort simply results in a lack of effect on other people’s psychology. It means that people’s interest in you will be paper thin. Their attention will quickly move on and you will not see the reason for this. Do not swallow the easy moralism of the day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability. Go in the opposite direction. With so few people out there who understand the art of desirability, it affords you endless opportunities to shine and exploit people’s repressed fantasies.

"Why do you let people call you a dog? You won't let anyone call you a knight."

"I like dogs better than knights ... A hound will die for you, but never lie to you."

The tyranny of positivity is the cultural message that all of us are sent that no matter what is happening, we should be putting on a happy face, that we should be soldiering through it and whistling cheerfully. I call it the tyranny of positivity and some people call it toxic positivity. What it really is, is a cultural directive that says, Whatever you do, don't tell the truth of what it's like to be alive.

One honest relationship can be more productive than fistfuls of business cards.

In time, you’ll come to understand that a state like ours cannot afford to offer up a show of weakness for honesty’s sake; Duke Nicovante charges me with vouchsafing his security, not his conscience.

I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks.

Bow to nothing, son. I make mistakes as well as any man. If you think me wrong, be so good as to damn well say so.

This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

They [the government] really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?

“It’s all PR,” said Hutchins. “If we ever produced a person who was unrelentingly honest, everybody would want him dead.”