honest quotes

There is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken inwhen they marry.Look where Iwill,Iseethat it is so; and I feel that it must be so, when I consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.

-Jane Austen
  Mansfield Park, ch.5.

A real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girlsmight be sent to be out of the wayand scramblethemselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.

-Jane Austen
  Emma, ch.3.

He has all the qualities that go to the making of a leader of the Conservative Party. He is not stupid, but he is very dull. He is not eloquent, but he talks well. He is not honest, politically, but he is most evangelical.He has a Beckett little money, but not much. He always conforms to the party policy.

-Baron
  Commenting on Sir Samuel Hoare's appointment as Foreign Secretary.

For the bewitching of naughtiness doth obscure things that are honest; and the wanderings of concupiscence doth undermine the simple mind.He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Wisdom of Solomon 4:12^13.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, thinkon these things.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Philippians 4:8.

From scenes like these, old S's grandeur springs, That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 'An honest man's the noble work of G'. See Pope 660:25.

- Robert Burns
COTIAOD1785  'The Cotter's Saturday Night', stanza19. The last line is in fact a misquotation of Pope;'noble' was corrected to'noblest' in the1794 edition of Burns's poems.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o'the Puddin-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang's myarm.

- Robert Burns
  'To a Haggis', stanza1.

Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonny lasses.

- Robert Burns
  'Tam o' Shanter.  A  Tale'.

Is there for honest Poverty That hings his head, and a'that; The coward-slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a'that! For a'that, and a'that, Our toils obscure, and a'that, The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a'that.

- Robert Burns
  'For a' that and a' that', stanza1.

I am looking for an honest man.

-Diogenes of Sinope
His reply when asked why he was wandering the streets of Athens during the day with a lantern.

I was never more hated than when Itried to be honest† On the other hand,I've never been more loved and appreciated than when Itried to'justify'and affirm someone's mistaken beliefs; or when I've tried to give my friendstheincorrect, absurd answersthey wishedtohear.

- RalphWaldo Ellison
  Invisible Man, epilogue.

Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

- F(rancis) Scott Key Fitzgerald
  Nick Carraway, the narrator. The Great Gatsby, ch.3.

   When a felon's not engaged in his employment Or maturing his felonious little plans His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's Ah! When constabulary duty's to be done A policeman's lot is not a happy one.

- Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
  Sergeant's song, The Pirates of Penzance, act 2.

   The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings.

- Ernest Millar Hemingway
  'Old Newsman Writes', in Esquire, Dec.

   You can't adopt politics as a profession and hope to remain honest.

- Louis McHenry Howe
  Speech, Columbia University,17  Jan.

An honest God is the noblest work of man. See Pope 660:25.

- Robert Ingersoll
  The Gods, pt.1.

Most of us are honest all thetime, and all of us are honest most of the time.

- Charles McCurdy,Jr Mathias
  Of congressional ethics. In Time, 31 Mar.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

- Marianne Craig Moore
  In Vogue,15  Aug.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

- George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
  'The Prevention of Literature', in Polemic,  Jan.

A good honest and painful sermon.

- Samuel Pepys
  Diary entry,17 Mar.

A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.

-William Safire
  After the Fall, referring toWatergate and the resignation of Richard M Nixon.

A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle-class unit.

- George Bernard Shaw
  Man and Superman,'Maxims for Revolutionists: Moderation'.