Quotes about Honesty

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

I'm not one of those politicians, to my probably discredit, who thinks very far ahead. It has to feel right to me and not be about a careful plot and plan.

It was the strangest feeling, to be convicted but not condemned. God had torn him down but then had slowly built him back up. He had crushed him and then restored him. The more honest Clay became, the more God revealed to him the condition of his heart—a heart born into darkness, a heart that had trusted in the ways of the world.

We need people, Juliet, to show us our selfishness, to extract the ugliness that reveals itself in our hearts.

The falseness of your own hearts, if you look not to them, may undo you(15).

Truth loves the light and is most beautiful when it is most naked. If you would not teach men, why are you in the pulpit? If you would teach men, why do you not speak so as to be understood?

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.

Integrity largely has to do with purifying our intentions and a growing honesty about our actual motives.

I guess prophets are those who do not care whether you are ready to hear their message. They say it because it has to be said and because it is true.

Amazing that we made Jesus into the consummate answer giver because that is not what he usually does. He more often leads us right onto the horns of our own human-made dilemmas, where we are forced to meet God and be honest with ourselves. He creates problems for us more than resolves them, problems that very often cannot be resolved by all-or-nothing thinking but only by love and forgiveness.

For some of you, my quoting Jesus is the only way you will trust me; for others, it gives you more reasons to mistrust me, but I have to take both risks. If I dared to present all of these ideas simply as my ideas, or because they match modern psychology or old mythology, I would be dishonest. Jesus for me always clinches the deal, and I sometimes wonder why I did not listen to him in the first place.

Francis's all-night prayer, "Who are you, O God, and who am I?" is probably a perfect prayer, because it is the most honest prayer we can offer.