Honest Quotes - Page 27

• It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.

  James Weldon Johnson

  People, Strange, Compunction

  James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995). “The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays”, p.284, Oxford University Press on Demand

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• Safety and happiness can only come from individuals, classes, and nations being honest and fair and kind to each other.

  C. S. Lewis

  Class, Safety, Kind

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.32, HarperCollins UK

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The personal qualities necessary for attaining office are practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to get elected, and nothing else. A test that you can only pass by cheating can't possibly select honest people.

  James P. Hogan

  Cheating, Opposites, Skills

  James P. Hogan (1983). “Code of the Lifemaker”, Del Rey

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Diogenesian search for an honest person would rarely lead to the author of a memoir.

  Tony Blankley

  Political, Memoir, Persons

  4 Copy quote

• Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar.

  H. L. Mencken

  Political, Politician, Ethical

  5 Copy quote

• I am speaking to those among you who have retained some sovereign shred of their soul, unsold and unstamped: '- to the order of others'. If, in the chaos of the motives that have made you listen to the radio tonight, there was an honest, rational desire to learn what is wrong with the world, you are the man whom I wished to address. By the rules and terms of my code, one owes a rational statement to those whom it does concern and who are making an effort to know. Those who are making an effort to fail to understand me, are not a concern of mine.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Order, Effort

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.1006, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There's a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn't exist.

  Rahm Emanuel

  Would Be, Stories, Pressure

  4 Copy quote

• As a social good, I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment. People conceal things in order to fool other people about them. They want to appear healthier than they are, smarter, more honest and so forth.

  Richard Posner

  Mean, Thinking, Order

  31 Copy quote

• An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his
  creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably
  found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with
  sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine
  perfume.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Sacrifice, Men, Blood

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.10, Library of Alexandria

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever, and get home, and then still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that, because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.

  Howard Dean

  Children, Home, Kids

  "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, www.nbcnews.com. June 6, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes I have experienced God in extraordinary ways - in dramatic surprises or soul-expanding insights or unexplainable mystical encounters. More often, I have felt God's reality in the simple encouragement of a friend, in the gentle inspiration of a sermon, or in the familiar ritual of the Eucharist and I'd be less than honest if I didn't also say that at times, I've found myself in the spiritual doldrums, cast adrift, wondering if the wind would ever blow again.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Spiritual, Encouragement, Inspiration

  32 Copy quote

• Ask me if Christianity (my version of it, yours, the Pope's, whoever's) is orthodox, meaning true, and here's my honest answer: a little, but not yet. Assuming by Christianity you mean the Christian understanding of the world and God, Christian opinions on soul, text, and culture I'd have to say that we probably have a couple of things right, but a lot of things wrong, and even more spreads before us unseen and unimagined. But at least our eyes are open! To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Christian, Wall, Couple

  56 Copy quote

• There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present.

  Washington Irving

  Morning, Book, Home

  Washington Irving (1843). “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Esq. (Wasington Irving)”, p.172

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Friend, many and many a dream is mere confusion a cobweb of no consequence at all. Two gates for ghostly dreams there are: One gateway of honest horn, and one of ivory. Issuing by the ivory gate are dreams of glimmering illusion, fantasies, but those that come through solid polished horn may be borne out, if mortals only know them.

  Homer

  Dream, Two, Ivory

  Homer, Robert Fitzgerald (1963). “The Odyssey”, Anchor

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• What happened to our friendship? I really think it's our obligation as friends to be brutally honest and be frank with them and say, 'Look, I'm sorry, but your baby is fking boring.'

  David Cross

  Baby, Sorry, Thinking

  The Best Fatherhood "Advice (from Comedians)" by Chris Giblin, www.esquire.com. August 28, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Wise, Husband, Father

  William Makepeace Thackeray (2008). “Contributions to Punch, Etc.”, p.311, Wildside Press LLC

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I was gonna write a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways.

  James Frey

  Book, Writing, Negative

  "Fact or fiction?" by Michelle Pauli, www.theguardian.com. January 11, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence.

  James Bryant Conant

  Excellence, Aristocracy, Calling

  James Bryant Conant (1942). “Our Fighting Faith: Five Addresses to College Students”, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I get pretty terrified, to be honest, when I'm on tour. You really have to muster a lot of ego to go our there, which I find rather draining.

  Michael Hutchence

  Ego, Terrified, Muster

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are those who insist that it is a very bad thing to question God. To them, “why?” is a rude question. That depends, I believe, on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for His meaning, or whether it is the challenge of unbelief and rebellion.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Believe, Rude, Challenges

  Elisabeth Elliot (2006). “On Asking God Why: And Other Reflections on Trusting God in a Twisted World”, p.18, Revell

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• An honest man with an open Bible and a pad and pencil is sure to find out what is wrong with him very quickly.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Men, Pads, Pencils

  11 Copy quote

• I'm always a big fan of if you approach somebody politely about something and you're not a nudge - you're just pretty honest and simple, my kind of philosophy is that I'm not afraid of 'no,' and that's way different than 'I won't take no for an answer.

  Carol Leifer

  Philosophy, Simple, Fans

  "The One Woman You MUST Know About Before Watching the Oscars This Sunday. (Hint: She's Known as the Real "Elaine" on Seinfeld!)" by Jessica Radloff, www.glamour.com. February 24, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent - not to say toddlerlike - idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Art, Real, Home

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.21, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• One thing about me is I try to be honest.

  Lou Holtz

  Trying, Being Honest, One Thing

  4 Copy quote

• To be honest, I’m more concerned with living my life than writing about my life. I feel like that’s really the main thing I know now that I didn’t know when I was younger — and that is that you have to have a life to write about one. If you’re more worried about having experiences so you can write about them, I think you’re kinda being ridiculous, and I think a lot of young people look at it like that.

  Jeff Tweedy

  Writing, Thinking, People

  9 Copy quote