Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Honesty

• Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Motivational, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.165, Harvard University Press

• Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Kindness

• Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.318, Harvard University Press

• Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Knowledge, Knowing

  "The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson".

• Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Truth, Honesty

• It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Patience, Cheating, Truth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Essays”, p.49, Open Road Media

• The highest compact we can make with our fellow is -
  "Let there be truth between us two forevermore."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Trust, Loyalty, Truth

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.416

• Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Teamwork, Honesty, Integrity

• 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

  Honesty, Men, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.430

• Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Integrity, Failure

• If men would avoid that general language and general manner in which they strive to hide all that is peculiar, and would say only what was uppermost in their own minds, after their own individual manner, every man would be interesting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.39, Courier Corporation

• Nature forever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect is seen to be done for effect; what is done for love is felt to be done for love. A man inspires affection and honor because he was not lying in wait for these.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2334, Delphi Classics

• A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1977). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1852-1855”, p.444, Harvard University Press

• There is ever a slight suspicion of the burlesque about earnest good men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

• Frankness invites frankness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Trust, Truth, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1857). “Essays: First Series”, p.215

• The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Time, Laughter, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Letters and Social Aims”, p.127

• You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Honesty, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: English traits”, p.128, Harvard University Press

• Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Work, Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.565, Рипол Классик

• Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange, extravagant and broken the monotony.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Honesty

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Honesty, Lying

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.111, Coyote Canyon Press

• Deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Gambling, Lasts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.1122, Library of America

• Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. The louder he talked of his honesty, the quicker we counted the silverware.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Honesty, Real

• Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Men, May

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1841-1843”, p.37, Harvard University Press

• When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and sometimes asquint.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Honesty, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.51, Penguin

You May Also Like:

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Margaret Fuller

Emily Dickinson

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville