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It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
Sep 10, 2025
An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
He is a truly virtuous man who wishes always to be open to the observation of honest men.
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
I read five books on the Constitution. My favorite was 'Plain, Honest Men' by Richard Beeman. I went on a science jag in the same way. I kept getting in arguments about evolution and being bested. So I read Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of the Species,' a fantastic book that is not that difficult.
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
The main trouble with being an honest man was that it lost you all your illusions.
You cannot con an honest man.
When treating with liars, even an honest man must lie.
And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
That which we call wit consists much in quickness and tricks, and is so full of lightness that it seldom goes with judgment and solidity; but when they do meet, it is commonly in an honest man.
Rakes are more suspicious than honest men.
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.
One of the things I love most about Martin Luther King is that he was willing to sacrifice his popularity in favor of his integrity. He was an honest man, and he would tell the truth.
When rogues fall out, honest men get into their own.
Is there a difference between a man who thinks that honesty is the best policy, and an honest man?
To love one child and to love all children, whether living or dead -somewhere these two loves come together. To love a no-good but humble punk and to love an honest man who believes himself to be an honest man -somewhere these, too, come together.
With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.
If an honest man is the noblest work of God, then Mr. Lincoln's title to high nobility is clear and unquestioned.
I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be, but I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.
An honest man with an open Bible and a pad and pencil is sure to find out what is wrong with him very quickly.
The only way to gall and fret effectively is for yourself to be a good and honest man.
Who would not rather be the sufferer than the defrauder?
Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
For a man who walks in the light, to stay humble is not to walk in the dark; you don't need to project yourself to be thought an honest man.
When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.
An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
The time has come for honest men to denounce false teachers and attack false gods.
EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
Time is the only test of honest men, one day is space enough to know a rogue.
To an honest man, it is an honor to have remembered his duty.
The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.
Honest men are the soft easy cushions on which knaves repose and fatten.
There are only two kinds of men in this world: Honest men and dishonest men. ...Any man who says the world owes him a living is dishonest. The same God that made you and me made this earth. And He planned it so that it would yield every single thing that the people on it need. But He was careful to plan it so that it would only yield up its wealth in exchange for the labor of man. Any man who tries to share in that wealth without contributing the work of his brain or his hands is dishonest.
I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son (W A Mozart)is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition.
The only way to combat the murder that is war is to show the dirty combinations that make it and the criminals and swine that hope for it and the idiotic way they run it when they get it so that an honest man will distrust it as he would distrust a racket and refuse to be enslaved into it.
You can always cheat an honest man, but it takes more work.
What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.
We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept nothing less . . . This condition of freedom, equality, and democracy is not the gift of gods. It is the task of men, yes, men, brave men, honest men, determined men.
Golf does strange things to other people, too. It makes liars out of honest men, cheats out of altruists, cowards out of brave men and fools out of everybody.
the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life.
A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will.
War has taught me that each one of us contains every ingredient of the human recipe. By varying measure we are all cowards and brave men, thieves and honest men, selfish and selfless men, malingerers and champions, weasels and lions. The only question is how much of each attribute we allow- or force - to dominate our being.
Whether we are describing a king, an assassin, a thief, an honest man, a prostitute, a nun, a young girl, or a stallholder in a market, it is always ourselves that we are describing.
There are courageous and honest men enough in both sections to fight. There is no question of courage involved. The people of both sections of this Union have illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon them; but that they may never come in contact with each other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of every true man and honest patriot.
For the first time in history, the rational and the good are fully armed in the battle against evil. Here we finally find the answer to our paradox; now we can understand the nature of the social power held by evil. Ultimately, the evil, the irrational, truly has no power. The evil men’s control of morality is transient; it lives on borrowed time made possible only by the errors of the good. In time, as more honest men grasp the truth, evil’s stranglehold will be easily broken.
A man should know about himself two or three things: whether he is a coward; whether he is an honest man or given to lies; whether he is an ambitious man. One should define oneself first of all in those terms, and only then in terms of culture, race, creed.
My father, who died a few years ago, was a good, simple, very honest man. His faith and affection for his family was just unassailable, without question.
Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.