Honesty Quotes
"You might ask, how can we be completely honest? To be completely honest, we must look carefully at our lives and have the courage to face the whole truth. If there are ways in which we are being even the least bit dishonest, we should begin at once to repent from them.
When we are completely honest, we cannot be corrupted. We are true to every trust, duty, agreement, and covenant, even if it costs us money, friends, or our lives. Then we can face the Lord, ourselves, and others without shame."
Elder L. Tom Perry: (Dev. at BYU, Oct. 12, 1993, "To Everything There Is A Season")
"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be, all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them."
Socrates
"Be honest in every way and enjoy the peace that only a clear conscience can bring you."
Thomas Wolsey, Scholar
"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out."
Macaulay (writer)
"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
George Washington (at age 15)
"Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market cart into a chariot of the sun."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Oliver Wendell Holmes said, 'Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.' " (The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table.)
Marion G. Romney, "Don't Lie. Tell the Truth," Ensign, Aug. 1975, 3
"Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas."
Benjamin Franklin
"People must be changed...goodness cannot be legislated."
Spencer W. Kimball
"It's true that you can't take it with you, but folks ought to remember that how you got it may determine where you go."
Author Unknown
"A LIE is ANY attempt to deceive someone."
"Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie; a fault which needs it most grows two thereby."
George Herbert
"Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect."
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
"There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience."
French Proverb
"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
Theodore Roosevelt
"In the midst of all this turmoil and destruction, the Latter-day Saints should dwell in peace and safety. This they may do if they will be honest with themselves, with their fellowmen, and with their God."
President Joseph Fielding Smith
When people proceed "without principle," erelong they will be "without civilization," "without mercy," and "past feeling."
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, April Conference 1995
Honesty
"Be fair. The best rule ever given concerning standards of fairness was spoken by the Lord when he said, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
(Matt. 7: 12.) (CR Oct 1981) Gordon B. Hinckley (From the Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley)
"It is not half so important for our neighbors to know that we are honest as it is for ourselves to know it."
Franklin D. Richards, CR 4/98:1
"You may talk about religion and speak about the Gospel, and say we have got the truth and the plan of salvation, and we have got the authority of the Priesthood; but if we are not honest, it does not amount to anything; for neither God nor honorable men love dishonesty. We must, therefore, be an honest people."
George Q. Cannon "Collected Discourses 1888 - 1898", Vol. 4
"The only security lies in individual, personal honesty, The law cannot make people honest."
Albert E. Bowen (General Conference Report, October 1938, page 66)
"And let every man deal honestly, and be alike among this people, and receive alike, that ye may be one, even as I have commanded you." (Doctrine and Covenants 51:9) "Honesty is basic. "It is true that lying is an accomplice to every other form of vice. Or, as someone has said, 'Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.' (O. W. Holmes, in The Home Book of Quotations, p. 1111.)
Deceit, insincerity, cheating are forms of lying—and, young people, cheating doesn't refer only to examination time. "Lying damages others. Lying subtly permits us to destroy ourselves as we are caught in the snare and shatter our own self-image and credibility. Freedom from deceit and lying improves self and gives all of us peace of mind."
Marvin J. Ashton - April 1982 General Conference - "This is No Harm"
"Whenever you violate a principle (such as honesty, morality, integrity, etc.), you may get a short-term gain, but always a long-term loss."
"Honesty is the foundation of a sound character and the keystone of all other virtues. It is the cement without which all other redeeming features are fractured and without anchor. A dishonest person may be kind, witty, and very capable, but the strength of character simply isn't there.
Honesty does not come by degrees. A person is either all honest or he is dishonest. You can be true or you can be false, but you can't be both at the same time."
William Grant Bangerter "Whose Help Would You Rather Have?" "New Era," Sept. 1979, 4
"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong."
Abraham Lincoln
"A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth."
Richard G. Scott, Ensign, Nov. 2004