Honesty

Neither will I put myself forward as others may do,
Neither, if you wish to flatter, will I flatter you;
I will look at you grimly, and so you will know I am true.
~ William Rose Benét, Eternal Masculine

No matter how skillful you are, you can't invent a product advantage that doesn't exist. And if you do, and it's just a gimmick, it's going to fall apart anyway.
~ Bill Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said . . . (1989).

[I]s he honest who resists his genius or conscience. only for the sake of present ease or gratification?
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). A Memorable Fancy

The voice of honest indignation is the voice of God.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93).

Better arrive at error by an honest process, than at truth by a dishonest one.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Sunshine and Shadows; or, Sketches of Thought, Philosophic and Religious (1863).

. . . for, however roguish a man may be, he always loves to deal with an honest man.
~ William Cobbett, in The Autobiography of William Cobbett: The Progress of a Plough-boy to a Seat in Parliament (1933). Letter to Rachel Smithers (6 July 1794)

An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.
~ William Cowper, Epistle to Joseph Hill

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest.
~ William Faulkner

Cross my heart and hope to eat my weight in goslings.
~ W.C. Fields

You can't cheat an honest man. He has to have larceny in his heart in the first place.
~ W.C. Fields, in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: W.C. Fields on Business (January 2000).

I hate a liar. Maybe because I'm such a good one myself, heh?
~ (William) Clark Gable, Photoplay Magazine (Interview; April 1941). Gable on the Spot: Things I don't like myself

And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief,
Depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.
~ Billy Graham

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge

Honesty is the best part of any art form. If you don't have that, you're kidding yourself and your listener.
~ Billy Joe

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honest is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you.
~ Billy Joel, Honesty

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians -- they stay bought.
~ Bill Moyers

I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system shows a lack of honesty.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Missiles. No. 26

And it does matter. An honest man or woman is an honest man or woman more because he or she is honest in the small, everyday things that "don't matter" individually, but which make up a well-lived life, than because of some single great temptation that was passed.
~ William Oliver

Since twelve honest men have decided the cause,
And were judges of fact, tho' not judges of laws.
~ Sir William Pulteney, The Honest Jury (1729)

I have Indian blood in me. I have just enough white blood for you to question my honesty!
~ Will Rogers

An honest exceeding poor man.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act II, scene ii

[B]lest be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act I, scene vi

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act IV, scene iv

I am myself indifferent honest.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene i

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act III, scene v

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well

O monstrous world! Take note, take note, o world,
To be direct and honest is not safe!
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act III, scene viii

O, my fortunes have
Corrupted honest men!
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV, scene v

Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act V, scene iv

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act XXII, scene v

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest; as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.
~ William Shenstone, from Works in Verse and Prose (1764). Essays on Men and Manners

Candor is always a double-edged sword; it may heal or it may separate.
~ Wilhelm Stekel, Marriage at the Crossroads (1931).

What looks like swindling with a petty sum,
Is on a grand and speculative scale
Honest enough, so it be large enough.
~ William Wetmore Story, Baron Fisco at Home

A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1847-8). Vol. II, Chapter 1

I don't know whether I like it, but it is what I meant.
~ Ralph Vaughan Williams, (on his 4th symphony, 1 August 1965), in Christopher Headington (1974). Bodley Head History of Western Music

Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being?
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

Honesty is the best image.
~ Tom Wilson, Ziggy