One sincere honest act will beat a dozen dishonest ones. Sincere displays of honesty and generosity will lull the vigilance of even the most suspicious. When your selective integrity breaks through, you can deceive and manipulate people however you like. A gift presented in time - the Trojan horse - will serve the same purpose.

KEYS TO POWER

The quintessence of deception is distraction. By distracting the people you are about to deceive, you are buying time and space to do something without them noticing. Kind, generous, honest acts are often the most effective distraction, disarming even the most suspicious. This turns them into children, ready to believe any spectacular gesture.

In ancient China, it was called "give before you take" - watching you give, others do not notice how you take. It is a mechanism with countless practical applications. Openly taking something away from someone is dangerous, even for those in power. The victim is inflamed with a thirst for revenge. It is also dangerous to simply ask for what you need, even if very politely: if others do not see it as a benefit for themselves, they may be offended by your request. Learn to give before you take. It sets the stage, softens the reaction to a future request, or simply serves as a distraction. Giving itself can take different forms: a hypothetical gesture of generosity or generosity, a real gift, a nice service, an “honest” recognition - depending on the circumstances.

Partial honesty works best when you're dealing with someone for the first time. We are all children of habit, and our first impression lasts a long time. If someone at the very beginning of your acquaintance believes in your honesty, it will be difficult to convince him otherwise. This will give you room to maneuver.

A one-time show of honesty is sometimes not enough. To create a reputation for honesty, a number of actions must be performed - even if they are quite inconsistent. Once a reputation is established, it, like the first impression, is hard to shake.

In ancient China, the Wu ruler of the Chen kingdom decided it was time to take over the increasingly powerful Chu kingdom. Without informing anyone of his intention, he arranged for the ruler of Chu to marry his daughter. He then called a council and told the ministers, “I'm going to start hostilities. What kingdom do you think we should take?" As he expected, one of the councilors replied, "The Chu Kingdom." The ruler seemed to be angry: “Chu is now a kindred state. How could you suggest attacking him? And he ordered the adviser to be punished for his criminal proposal. The ruler of Chu heard of this and, given the many reports of Bu's honesty, as well as his marriage to his daughter, did nothing to protect his borders with the Chen kingdom. A few weeks later, the Chen army entered Chu and handed over power to Wu, so that he would never let go of it again.

Honesty is one of the best ways to dispel suspicion, but it's not the only one. Any manifestation of nobility, a selfless act, an act of self-denial will serve this purpose, but especially generosity. Few people can resist a gift, even from a hardened enemy, which is why it's a great way to disarm people. The gift awakens the child in us, at other times suppressed by wariness. Although we tend to view other people's actions in the most cynical light, we rarely see the Machiavellian underpinnings of a gift, often hidden behind higher motives. A gift is a wonderful object that can hide base, motives.

When using this tactic, you need to be careful: if you are unraveled, then disappointment, unrealized feelings of gratitude and warmth will turn into powerful hatred and distrust. If you cannot give sincerity and warmth to your actions, do not start playing with fire.

Image: Trojan horse. Your cunning is hidden inside a magnificent gift that your opponent cannot resist. The gates open. Once inside, sow havoc.

Authoritative opinion: When the ruler, Xin of the Chen kingdom was about to attack the Yu kingdom, he presented their ruler with jade and a herd of horses. When the ruler of Qi was about to attack Zhou, he presented him with beautiful chariots. Hence the proverb: “When you are going to take, you must give.”

Han Feizi, Chinese Philosopher (II century BC)

FRANCESCO BORRI, COURT CHARLATAN Francesco Giuseppe Borri of Milan, whose death in 1695 almost coincided with the end of the 17th century, anticipated that special type of charlatan, adventurer, impostor - courtier or cavalier ... Real fame came to him when he moved to Amsterdam. There, assuming the title of Medico Universale, he surrounded himself with a huge retinue and rode around in a carriage drawn by six horses ... Patients flocked to him from everywhere, some patients were carried in sedan chairs from Paris to Amsterdam itself. Borri did not charge for his consultations, distributed large sums to the poor, and was known to never receive money by mail or bills of exchange. As he continued to live in luxury at the same time, the rumor soon spread that he owned the "philosopher's stone." Suddenly this benefactor disappeared from Amsterdam. Then it turned out that he had taken with him the money and jewelry that had been entrusted to him for safekeeping.

Evgeny Roizman: honest deeds of honest people

The guy wrote in a personal message in the spring: “I have a very important question. I ask for advice ”I say: Write! He replies: “Too serious, I can only say personally.” I say: “OK, come for a run.”

He came, such a serious young fellow, and said: “I have a difficult situation, I work in a bank and we are all being driven to the elections to vote for Putin, the mobilization is the most severe, up to and including dismissal, but I don’t want to vote for Putin! But I'm in a good position, I have profile images and I have a good salary ... "

Well, I began to say to him a cautious tongue twister, like, you are alone in the booth and no one will know who you voted for .... And he suddenly cut me off decisively: “No. I’m not going to prevaricate, I don’t want to lie, wag and hide!” I even felt embarrassed that I offered him an unworthy way out and I said with a light heart: “Go away.” And he, apparently, was already ready and he needed to make it sound.

“…we need honest and principled people…”

And so, somehow I was running along the Plotinka, and the guy on the side was attached. He asks on the run: “Remember, I told you before the elections that we were being driven to vote for Putin in the bank and I asked you what to do?”
- Yeah, I say - and how did you do it?
Like you said, I quit.
- Where now?
- Yes, I got a job in another bank, the position is higher and the salary is higher.
- Wow! And how did it happen?
- Scattered resume. They invited me for an interview, asked why I quit my previous job, I did not lie and told it like it is. They asked me to wait, then the manager came out to me, invited me to his place and said that they would take me. I say: Aren't you embarrassed by the reason why I quit?
And the manager says: This is one of the reasons why we take you. We need honest and principled people.

Evgeny Roizman (C)

Psychologists have long assumed that the evolution of cooperation and altruism in humans should have led to the development of special adaptations for remembering untrustworthy fellow tribesmen. Experiments, however, have shown that the names and faces of deceivers are no better remembered than the names and faces of honest people. The difference is that facts that damage the reputation of people we know are remembered much better than information about good or neutral deeds.

Cooperation, mutual assistance and altruism play a huge role in the life of human collectives. Long gone are the days when the development of altruism seemed difficult to explain from the standpoint of natural science. Under certain conditions, genes (more precisely, genetic variations - alleles) that provide a tendency to cooperative and altruistic behavior are distributed in the population even if it is more profitable for each individual individual to behave selfishly and not help anyone. Elements has already written about how this happens more than once (see the selection of references in the article Intergroup wars - the reason for altruism?, Elements, 06/05/2009). Strictly speaking, from the point of view of an individual, selfishness is, by definition, always more profitable than altruism.

However, it is more correct to consider any adaptations from the point of view of their benefit not for an individual, but for distribution of genes, which are responsible for the formation of these adaptations. Natural selection can take place at different levels, but its results are fixed ("remembered") only at the level of genes - and nothing else. The “altruism gene” can literally doom its carriers to death, but it will still spread - for example, thanks to the “kin selection” mechanism (by sacrificing itself, an individual saves its relatives, many of which carry copies of the same “altruism gene "). Selfless parental care for offspring is the most widespread result of kin selection.

Therefore, “altruism genes” usually spread in the gene pool of a population in close collaboration with “anti-deceiver genes” (see: Altruism of social insects is supported by police methods, Elements, 08.11.2006).

Reciprocal altruism implies the ability of individuals to single out from among their relatives those who have proven themselves to be selfish, and not have anything to do with them. Thus, two goals are achieved at once: selfishness is “punished” (the profitability of selfish behavior decreases), and an individual that avoids communication with selfish people increases its chances of not being deceived. Based on these considerations, evolutionary psychologists suggest that natural selection must have developed special psychological adaptations in our ancestors to help identify and remember deceivers. This hypothesis has a number of testable consequences. In particular, she predicts that our ability to remember deceivers may be more developed than other similar abilities - for example, to remember people with a good or unknown reputation.

Several studies have already been carried out to test this prediction. In general, it was confirmed; however, some unexpected details were discovered and new questions arose.

“Remembering a deceiver” consists of two parts: first, you need to remember the person himself, and secondly, that he is a deceiver. These are two fundamentally different tasks, which do not necessarily always have to be performed simultaneously and in concert. You can, for example, remember a person's face, but at the same time forget under what circumstances we saw him and what his reputation is. Theoretically, these two aspects of the memory of deceivers can be developed to different degrees in people, although it is not so easy to distinguish them in the experiment (and so far this has not usually been done).

Recently, German psychologists from Düsseldorf have shown that people remember the faces of deceivers no better and no worse than the faces of respectable citizens. However, information about dishonest deeds committed by deceivers is imprinted in our memory more effectively than information about the good deeds of kind people or the neutral deeds of persons of unknown reputation (see: Axel Buchner, Raoul Bell, Bettina Mehl, Jochen Musch. // Evolution and Human Behavior. 2009. V. 30. P. 212-224). In principle, this makes sense, given that the capacity of our memory is not infinite, and numerous and varied social contacts are vital. If we remembered the bad people first, there would be less room in our memory to remember the people we could deal with. But if, for one reason or another, we remember a certain person, and we know that we cannot trust him, then it is very important to put the appropriate “tick” in our memory so that in the future, if possible, do not contact him.

In an article published June 22 in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, the same authors reported on a new series of experiments in which it was shown that the memorization of people's names, depending on their reputation, is subject to the same pattern as the memorization of faces. Thus, on the one hand, the previously identified regularity was confirmed, on the other hand, an argument was obtained against the popular hypothesis, according to which the mechanism of remembering deceivers has a particularly close specific connection with the face recognition system.

The experiment involved 193 people (111 women and 82 men) aged 18 to 52 years. The same methodology was used as in the previous work, with the difference that instead of faces, the subjects were presented with names. Testing was carried out individually. First, the subject was given a list of 36 common male names to read, with each name accompanied by brief information about the type of activity of this person. A third of the people were characterized as deceivers, a third as honest people, and neutral information was reported about the remaining third, from which it was impossible to draw a conclusion about the moral qualities of a person. For example, such stories were used as "compromising" information: "HE sells old cars and at the same time often hides information about serious defects in his goods from buyers." An example of a positive characteristic: "He sells cheese, while he always allows customers to try cheese and does not try to sell stale goods."

All features were of the same length (21 words in German) and had all previously been tested in independent tests. It has been shown that "negative" characteristics do cause a negative reaction, positive ones - a positive one.

For each subject, the names and characteristics used were combined randomly. Participants had to indicate, on the basis of a six-point scale, how much they liked the person. As expected, deceivers got the lowest scores, honest people the highest.

At the second stage, the subject was shown 72 names in random order - 36 "old" ones, already familiar to him from the first stage of testing, and the same number of "new" ones. The names this time were not accompanied by any additional information. The subject had to indicate whether the given name is old or new. If he believed that the name was old, then the next question was whether this person is a deceiver, honest, or nothing definite can be said about his reputation.

The results obtained were subjected to rather complex statistical processing, which made it possible to divide the act of remembering into two components: remembering the name itself and remembering the moral qualities of its bearer. In this case, of course, the probability of random guessing was taken into account.

It turned out that remembering the names themselves is completely independent of the reputation of their carriers. In other words, the names of deceivers, honest people, and people of unknown reputation were remembered by the subjects with equal efficiency. However, information about the moral character of deceivers was remembered much better than similar information about honest and "neutral" personalities. Thus, we are not inclined to selectively remember deceivers, but if we happen to remember a given person, then the facts that discredit his reputation will be remembered with special care.

The results obtained suggest that the mechanism for remembering deceivers appears to be more universal and less "specific" than previously thought. Some experts suggested that for the selective memory of information about deceivers in the brain, there is a special module that is closely related to the facial recognition system. This was facilitated by the fact that so far in most of these experiments, the subjects were asked to memorize faces. Now, however, it has become clear that the point here is not in the faces - the names "work" just as well. Therefore, if a special "deceiver memory module" exists, it is not strictly tied to the face recognition system and can use other "personal identifiers", including names.

Perhaps the increased efficiency of remembering compromising information about people is due to the fact that such information evokes a stronger emotional response in us (indignation, anger) than information about good deeds. Such a differentiated emotional response, in turn, can also be interpreted as an evolutionary adaptation. It is beneficial for us to react more sharply to antisocial acts than to good ones, and it is better to remember them, because they are more informative. In human society, "good" behavior (cooperative, altruistic) is in many cases simply more beneficial than antisocial behavior. Therefore, even people who by nature are very prone to deceit and fraud, very often behave honestly, pursuing their own selfish interests - this says little. Antisocial actions, on the contrary, betray the egoist with his head.

Before you - quotes, aphorisms and witty sayings about honesty. This is a rather interesting and extraordinary selection of the most real "pearls of wisdom" on this topic. Here are collected entertaining witticisms and sayings, clever thoughts of philosophers and apt phrases of the masters of the colloquial genre, brilliant words of great thinkers and original statuses from social networks, as well as much more.

As an added bonus, you can get acquainted with the promotions and offers of leading perfume retailers, as well as pick up a fashionable wardrobe and exclusive accessories for your favorite fragrances...

Honesty is the best policy, especially when backed by money.
Mark Twain.

He has a very good reputation for an honest man.
Richard Sheridan.

Everyone wants to be higher, more significant. Even in honesty, sincerity, decency.
Ishkhan Gevorgyan.

What's so hard about being honest? Why is not lying a difficult task for most people? It seems that this whole huge, incredible world is based on one lie. Touch it, dig deeper, and it will collapse like a thatched house without a foundation.
Tatyana Kogan.

Truth is a weapon, and in order not to be abused, it must be distributed so that no one remains unarmed.
A. Gelman.

Every transaction between falsehood and truth is always made at the expense of truth.
J. Massillon.

He will not sell anyone to buy his future. And this, my friends, is called honesty, courage.

Honesty in personal matters alone, without any definite notions of general matters of the public good, brings too little benefit to society.
N. G. Chernyshevsky.

Does a saint need honesty? - Khoja Nasreddin was asked.
“Yes, if he wants to correctly measure his distance to God,” he replied.
Absalom Underwater.

Honest people live boring! Thieves, on the other hand, at all times arrange themselves magnificently, and everyone loves thieves, because they are always satisfying and fun around them.
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.

It's good to be honest when everyone is equal and poor, but almost impossible when there are rich and poor around.
Chingiz Abdullayev.

Be honest and poor, do me a favor, but I will not envy you. I'm not even sure I'll respect you. I have much more respect for those who are honest and rich.
Jane Austen.

An honest woman deserves admiration.
Charles Bukowski.

Wisdom is more precious than gold, but honesty, justice and dignity are more important than any wisdom.
Ali Apsheroni.

Honesty is the true aristocracy of our time.
E. Renan.

No fog can stand against the rays of truth.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Honesty on a cheat sheet that a sale without money.
Konstantin Kushner.

The degree of truthfulness of a person is an indicator of the degree of his moral perfection.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Sincerity is not truth.
L. Lavelle.

Express your approval honestly and sincerely.
Dale Carnegie.

Sincerity is a strength, and sly ones neglect it in vain.
A. Graf.

Absolute honesty is not the most diplomatic and safe method of dealing with emotional beings.
Interstellar.

If you believe in marriage, live honestly in it. If not, get divorced quickly.
Richard Bach.

An honest person is exalted in soul, therefore his happiness is deep and inescapable. On all his deeds lies the stamp of freedom. A vile person is low in soul, therefore his joy is petty and fleeting. Everything they do betrays injustice.
Hong Zichen.

A person who is not afraid of the truth has nothing to be afraid of lies.
T. Jefferson.

An honest person often sees through all the trickery of the finest businessmen.
I. Goethe.

Shurik is direct, honest, decent ... These are the qualities of a suicide.
Alexander Demyanenko, actor

I am selflessly in love with honesty and try to fight lies in all its manifestations. Therefore, I cannot tell you where I told the truth and where I lied. After all, in this case, the lie will win.
Robert Downey.

Honesty can be very cruel. But I appreciate any honesty.
Matthew McConaughey.

How easy it is to say, "I won't fool anyone again." How easy it is to be honest, courageous and law-abiding when you have nothing to lose!
Oleg Roy.

The greatest offense that can be done to an honest person is to suspect him of being dishonest.
William Shakespeare.

Live in such a way that your children, thinking about justice and honesty, will remember you.
Jackson Brown Jr.

Honesty in journalism is the responsibility of every writer. I would say that this is an indicator of his "soul". For ourselves, we are authors, publishers, and publicists. People can twist the truth however they want. Lies can cross the world before the word of truth is out of the mouth.
Ashton Kutcher.

I want to be honest... But less than rich...
Vladimir Semyonov.

When a person has no other intention than to tell the truth, a few words are enough for him.
R. Steele.

Courage is not afraid of the spectacle of crime, honesty is not afraid of the authorities.
Victor Marie Hugo.

An honest answer can only be given to an honest question. Otherwise it will be nonsense. Neither an answer without a question, nor a question without an answer have any value. Therefore, until you ask, no one will answer you.
Dmitry Emets.

Love, by its very nature, has nothing to do with honesty.
Lawrence Durrell.

Of course, a person can be loved - if you do not know him too closely.
Charles Bukowski.

You waste a lot of time if you talk nonsense. What do I lose by being honest? Why should I pretend to be something I'm not?
Will Valo.

Always play fair if you have all the cards in your hands.
Oscar Wilde.

Everything I think about, I put into words. I am honest with myself. I'm young. I am old. I've been bought and sold so many times. I got calluses. I am no more - I am the same as you.

An honest person should carefully study the experience of dishonest people so as not to accidentally act like them.
Igor Karpov.

Right is that which leads to just and honest deeds.
Fenimore Cooper.

He is honest just enough not to be hanged.
Pierre Augustin Caron Beaumarchais.

I will probably focus on deeds, not words. They are more honest.
Dr. House.

The more honestly I answer you, the more a liar I can seem to you.
Stirlitz, "Seventeen Moments of Spring".

How should one live: happily or honestly? There is an abyss between happiness and goodness. Few of us find the bridge, others die on the steep path.
Mirza Shafi Vazeh.

In our times, it is already obvious that those sovereigns who cared little for piety and knew how to trick people's brains by cunning won in the end those who relied on their honesty.
Nicollo di Bernardo Machiavelli.

The truth, like a jewel, should not be embellished, but it should be positioned so that it can be seen in favorable light.
D. Santayana.

Nothing dishonest can be truly beneficent.
Benjamin Franklin.

The poorest people tend to be the most honest.
Denzel Washington.

We have to play by the rules, because if you won unfairly, then this is not a real victory.

A true deed, once it is correctly stated, is invincible.
Plutarch.

Time is precious, but the truth is more precious than time.
B. Disraeli.

The bitterest truth is always better than the sweetest lie.
Ya.A. Ostrovsky.

Honesty dies when sold.
George Sand.

It's very easy to advise others - be honest. And one by one, everyone tries to turn his dishonesty with honesty.
Müller, Seventeen Moments of Spring.

Righteousness and sincerity are the best ornaments for both men and women.
O. Henry (William Sidney Porter).

In our country (as someone noted) honest people are less common than saints.
Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov.

Gotta be honest. Lie once and you will no longer be trusted.
David Mitchell.

Honesty is a very valuable quality. You should not expect it from people who are cheap.
Warren Buffett.

In this life, someone who is kind, honest and selfless has a very difficult time.
Oleg Roy.

Of two people, the doubter will be more honest!
Yuri Alekseevich Dryga.

Rarely do you find bold honesty.
Georges Bataille.

Honesty at court is a dangerous thing, for others and for oneself.
Guy Gavriel Kay.

Honesty is a mirror, peering into which, everyone wants to see himself not deceived.
Konstantin Kushner.

Honesty takes too long.
Max Fry.

The truth is always dangerous for the power of scoundrels, exploiters, robbers. That's why the truth is suppressed.
Y. Debs.

Truth loves to settle in deeds: not every deed is truth, but truth always lives in deeds.
MM. Prishvin.

Becoming honest with yourself is as difficult and dangerous as drinking a cauldron of boiling water. It is much easier and safer to cook others in this cauldron, revealing to them the truth about yourself.
Stanislav Kushnarov.

Be honest with yourself and with people, always do everything on time, never give up, go to your goals, even if everything is bad.
Stephen Paul Jobs.

If you are honest and frank and people will deceive you - still be honest and frank.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Sometimes honesty runs into injustice and ingratitude, but to refuse it is the same as pretending to be blind to a sighted person.
Mark Levy.

Become an honest person, and then you can be sure that there is one less rogue in the world.
Thomas Carlyle.

Honesty is as much a superfluous spice to beauty as honey sauce is to sugar.
William Shakespeare.

The closest thing to greatness is honesty.
Victor Marie Hugo.

Scoundrels love honest people.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

The smarter and more skillful a person is, the more hated he becomes when he has lost his reputation for honesty.
Cicero.

He who demands payment for his honesty most often sells his honor.
Luc de Clapier de Vauvenargues.

The one who writes the truth rejects any lie.
B. Brecht.

I will not hesitate to follow the one who speaks to me with the voice of truth.
W. Whitman.

Truth is short: lies are always verbose.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Personally, between a person who is evil, unfriendly and lying for no reason, I will choose the first one, no matter what the situation is. Because even an evil person can be relied upon, but there is no hope for a lying infantile. You never know if he's lying to you right now...
Oleg Roy.

Here's what I think: if you can't do it honestly, don't do it at all.
Viggo Mortensen.

True honesty often lives like a pearl in a dirty oyster shell.
William Shakespeare.

The honesty of a great heart, turned into a clot of truth and justice, strikes like lightning.
Victor Marie Hugo.

At least be honest enough yourself not to lie to others.
F. Bacon

Honesty is the simplest expression of the principle of truth.
S. Smiles

The truth never looks back to expose a lie; her own directness is the most severe reproof.
G. Toro.

Someone said that life would be hard if not for the honest eyes of dogs. He is a fool. The dog is good. But the best thing is people's honest eyes.
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria.

He who does not suffer from the disease of remorse, let him not think about honesty.
Jules Renard.

Sincerity is the mother of truth and the sign of an honest man.
D. Diderot.

Truth is stranger than fiction: fiction must adhere to plausibility, but truth does not need it.
Mark Twain.

We must be honest with those we love.
Angel de Coetier.

Create a "Society of Honest People" and all thieves will join it.
Emile-Auguste Chartier.

Honesty leads to God, but deceit leads away from Him.

I never trusted him - he's too honest.

Even the most quirky man can at best only be compared with the most truthful woman.
Choderlos de Laclos.

If a person loses the love of honesty, he will quickly become involved in so many bad deeds that he will become accustomed to dishonest rules of life.

There are probably many spirits in heaven who have never seen such a curiosity as an honest cardinal. And spirits are great hunters of novelties.
Ethel Lilian Voynich.

The people must be told the truth, only then will their eyes be opened, and they will learn to fight against untruth.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

If an “honest and noble word” could strike any liar with lightning, it would be difficult to walk through the streets from burning bodies.
Anton Chizh.

One who remains honest for a long time eventually becomes fearless.
Reginald Darnell Hunter.

Love for life means love for truth.
R. Kent.

Truth overcomes any space and cannot be stopped by any boundaries.
A. Barbus.

God lives in an honest head.
Japanese proverb.

It's never too late to start an honest life.
Latin proverb.

The proletariat needs the truth, and there is nothing more harmful to its cause than a plausible, decent, philistine lie.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

If scammers knew all the benefits of honesty, they would stop cheating for the sake of profit.
Benjamin Franklin.

Honesty is the road to salvation. Courage is the path to success.

Justice is the valor of the chosen natures, truthfulness is the duty of every decent person.
IN. Klyuchevsky.

No matter how offended you are, people still need to believe. Otherwise, you will be like a hermit in a cave, who is on the alert even in a dream. Danger can never be avoided anyway: even then life is mortally dangerous... Even fatal. At the end of life.
Robert Heinlein.

One dishonest accountant is worse than the army of the enemy.
Napoleon I Bonaparte.

In order to learn to tell the truth to people, one must learn to tell it to oneself.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Such is the irresistible nature of truth that it asks and desires only one thing - the free right to be born. The sun does not need an explanatory inscription - it is already distinguished from darkness.
T. Payne.

An honest man can be persecuted, but not dishonored.
F. Voltaire.

Part of me truly believes that honesty is, as school teachers like to say, "the best policy" - and in all cases. She saves me from "exposure"...
Stephen Fry.

Only the truly truthful is as unshakable as a rock.
Ludwig van Beethoven.

Being chronically honest is like running a bike race in sandpaper underpants.
Terry Pratchett.

Making promises and not fulfilling them means, perhaps, a clever person, but, of course, a dishonest person.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

We often do not tell the truth so as not to hear it ourselves.
Publius Sir.

Not telling when the only person in front of you who can help you is not only dishonest, it's stupid.
Sergey Lukyanenko.

Honesty is the vanity of the poor.
Andrei Petrilin.

Man's only duty on earth is the truth of the whole being.
Marina Tsvetaeva.

If a person who lives honestly among honest and respectful people deserves attention and support, then a person who remains honest among the most notorious scoundrels deserves special attention and support.
Eugene Sue.

To be an honest person for everyone means to live for the good of the common, to sacrifice the common personal interest.
Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev.

All who stand for the truth strive towards the same goal.
A. Barbus.

Please stop. Even if it hurts me, be honest with me for a second and tell me the truth.
Serena van der Woodsen.

Sincerity is the mother of truth and the sign of an honest person.
Denis Diderot.

Truth is a quality rarely found in epitaphs.
G. Toro.

There is nothing more beautiful in the world than an honest person.
R. Rollan.

Truth is our most precious asset. Let's take good care of her.
Mark Twain.

Truth is greater than pity.
M. Gorky.

Actions that define a person as honest should only be fair and kind. Honesty does not mean telling the truth. It is the ability to be able to protect it.
Akif Akhmedov.

Where a person sees no threat to his own benefit, he can easily be both honest and humane.
Vikenty Veresaev.

Honest people are hard to deal with.
E.E. Talu.

Honesty will outlive the human race.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec.

Every person is inclined to suspect at least one fundamental virtue: I, for example, consider myself one of the few honest people that I know.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

No, that's the way it is everywhere: people kill each other. Only they usually come up with some stupid reasons for this, like the fact that you pray to the Lord differently than I do, so you must die ... It is much more honest to say: I need your money, or you will give it to me, or you will die!
Igor Pronin.

Absolute honesty in the presentation helps maximum clarity.
P. Chalmosh.

The truth is like a bitter drink, unpleasant in taste, but restoring health.
O. Balzac.

Honesty is the best habit.
Indian wisdom.

Honest people love women, deceivers adore them.
P. Beaumarchais

Although he is a thief, he is a disinterested and honest person.
Maxim Podberezovikov.

Decency and honesty are too expensive gifts. And do not expect them from cheap people.
Woody Allen.

In our great democratic society, there is still an opinion that a stupid person is mostly more honest than a smart one, and our politicians, using this prejudice to their advantage, pretend to be even more stupid than they were born into the world.
Bertrand Russell.

It is profitable to live honestly: and your conscience is clear, and you sleep peacefully, and you are not ashamed of life. The only pity is that dishonest businessmen and rogues do not understand this, base deeds, paving the path to hell.
Vladimir Eduardovich Kazaryan.

To be honest, it's hard as hell to tell.
Haruki Murakami.

Honesty paints any title.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.

If we see filth, then it is in us. Like connects with like. If I say: here comes the thief, then I myself stole, if not a thousand dollars, then a nail. Don't judge people - look at yourself.
Pyotr Mamonov.

You just have to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people there are.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

An honest person will not lie to just anyone.
Igor Karpov.

The more I try to be honest, the deeper the right words sink into darkness.
Haruki Murakami.

He was not born a rich man, and in this world, as I have learned in my lifetime, you cannot get rich by good deeds.
Jorah Mormont.

A pure, sincere, fiery and tireless soul is a temple in which it is easiest to hear the revealed truths.
D. Mazzini.

Not every force stands for truth, but every truth asserts itself by force.
MM. Prishvin.

Honesty offends people at the moment when it harms them, then they admire it and exalt it.
Pliny the Younger.

One should not lightly allow one's conscience to be impregnable. After all, little by little you can reach such an extreme as honesty in politics.
Victor Hugo.

To be honest, one must add an enlightened mind to the nobility of the soul. The one in whom these various gifts of nature are combined is always guided by the compass of public good.
K. Helvetius.

The person who says: "Goodbye, my love!" - is inevitably hypocritical. An honest person will say this: "Goodbye ... sorry, I forgot your name."
Absalom Underwater.

Honesty is often reckless.
Louis Aragon.

If I live honestly, then I seem to be protected: I am responsible for myself, and for what I do, and for my words.
Sergei Bodrov.

The only honest person in the world is you.

The most important thing I always want to achieve is to keep the word that I gave to someone.
Richard Branson.

The first condition for rapprochement is sincerity.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin.

Scoundrels succeed in their affairs because they treat honest people as if they were scoundrels, and honest people treat scoundrels as if they were honest people.
V. G. Belinsky.

Honesty, decency and kindness. If someone does not have at least one of these qualities, he is a demi-human.
Grigory Leps.

To tell the truth is not given to everyone!
Maksim Gorky.

First of all, you need to be honest with yourself.
Anatoly Rakhmatov.

A smart, honest and straightforward person may well fall into a trap: it would never occur to him that someone would take it into his head to catch him on a miss and turn him into a laughing stock. Credulity lulls caution in him, and stupid jokers take advantage of this. So much the worse for those who try to play a trick on him a second time: such a person can only be deceived once.
Jean de La Bruyère.

I play fair and play to win. If I lose, I take medication.
Robert James Fisher.

Sometimes it is difficult to keep the law, - said the father. - Especially if you want everything to be fair.
John Steinbeck.

Honesty has such a property that it requires compliance even with promises made to the enemy.
Giovanni Gioviano Pontano.

An honest man in any position can maintain his dignity.
E. Xu.

You boast in vain that you remained honest, incorruptible and in disgrace: many who really did not sell are those who were not bought.
Igor Huberman.

Being honest is beneficial, but some people feel that this is not beneficial enough.
Frank Hubbard.

In order to say clearly what you have to say, speak sincerely, and in order to speak sincerely, speak as the thought came to you.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

True, like the sun, it can become cloudy, but only for a while.
C. Bowie.

You have to be a bit of a liar to tell stories right. Too much truth and the facts get mixed up and mixed up. Too much honesty and it will sound insincere.
Patrick Rothfuss.

The truth rarely seems believable.
A. Morua.

Terrible fatigue encourages a person to speak honestly, without embarrassment.
Dan Simmons.

Only the full truth is good. Half-truths are worthless.
Stefan Zweig.

Whoever wants to live his life honestly must bear in mind in his youth that one day he will be an old man, and in old age remember that he too was once young.
Johnson S.

Truthfulness is the scale of friendship.
I. Gaman.

Even in trifles one must be truthful!
Maksim Gorky.

The living truth lives and punches its way, like all living things, like a spring green sprout among the rubbish.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin.

Defeat is a school from which the truth always comes out stronger.
G. Beecher.

It would have been more honest of him to tell me right away that the boat was sinking before inviting me for a ride.
Clive Staples Lewis.

Happiness does not lie in every pleasure, but only in honest and noble.
Thomas More.

One must have the courage to face the unvarnished bitter truth.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

An honest American is one who is sold once in a lifetime. He sets a price for himself, receives money and then becomes incorruptible.
Sergey Dovlatov.

It's good to be honest only because they believe when you're lying.
Aleksey Ivanov.

They say that the truth is stranger than fiction: for most people, it is true - they are less likely to meet it.
Bernard Show.

The venal can be paid for honesty.
Leshek Kumor.

Blessed is the man who does not go to the council of the wicked, and does not stand in the way of sinners, and does not sit in the assembly of corrupters.

The louder he spoke of his honesty, the more carefully we counted the tablespoons.
Ralph Emerson.

Nowadays, when people say about a person that he knows how to live, they usually mean that he is not particularly honest.
George Savile Halifax.

Sincerity is the source of all genius.
L. Berne.

The source of our faith and hope is truth.
A. Barbus.

Truth is militant, it fights not only against untruth, but also against certain people who spread it.
B. Brecht.

It is difficult for a heart that is confident in its own honesty to understand someone else's cunning.
Richard Sheridan.

What does honesty mean in such an area of ​​\u200b\u200blife as sex? If you demand that everything in sex be fair, then it’s better for people to multiply immediately, like mushrooms. Honestly, you can't imagine.
Haruki Murakami.

Truly honest people are those who are perfectly aware of their shortcomings and openly admit them.
F. La Rochefoucauld.

Honesty is, of course, good, but what if you ask a question that you cannot answer with the truth?
Sara Dessen.

Don't be content with a quiet, peaceful life! Fight for the ideal! Even if it is quixotic, your efforts will not be in vain. Faced with someone else's pain, do not pass by, when you meet a starving person, understand that it is your duty to alleviate his torment, when you see that someone is being mistreated because he has a different skin color, paint your skin the same color. For those who would argue that only their God exists, be reminded that it was He who created the multi-colored world and endowed it with infinite diversity. Take care of yourself and the dignity of others. Injustice and evil spread when good people give up. True abomination lies in pretense and tolerance for meanness.
Mark Levy.

Honesty is the best defense and the best offense.
Francis Underwood.

Be honest from time to time and you'll have an excellent alibi.
André Prevot.

I respect honesty in people. But over time, I realized that fox habits are still necessary for a woman.
Anna Alekseevna Snatkina.

Everything has to be fair - or not at all.
Olga Gromyko.

Straightforwardness adorns all the feelings it accompanies.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

There is no need to deceive yourself with untruth. It's unhealthy.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

No honest person has ever hidden anything on purpose.
Ernst Simon Bloch.

The ranks begin - sincerity ceases.
Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin.

Sometimes even honest people become part of the deception.
James Clemens.

Honesty means as much to us as it does to others.
Pliny the Younger (Gaius Pliny Caecilius Secundus).

Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I will find in them something to hang him for.
Armand Jean du Plessis (Cardinal Richelieu).

His honesty was impeccable, and this in an age when the military so easily entered into a deal with faith and conscience, lovers - with the severe scrupulousness characteristic of our time, and the poor - with the seventh commandment of the Lord. In a word, Athos was a very unusual person.
Alexandr Duma.

Truthfulness is the breath of life, it is the basis of all dignity.
T. Dreiser.

Honest people never suspect anything bad, because they themselves are not capable of doing evil, which is why they are easily fooled by the first counter swindler. It is unusually easy and extremely unworthy to deceive them, an impudent rogue who succeeds in this occupation only humiliates himself, without adding to his own vicious glory.
Marquis de Sade.

Excessive honesty borders on stupidity.
Japanese proverb.

Living happily means living honestly.

Take the expression "Honesty is the best policy" as your motto and follow it in deeds, words and thoughts.
Louisa May Alcott.

All people are the same in essence, all are the same by birth, the nobler is the one who is honest by nature.
Seneca.

If you want to act honestly, take into account and believe only the public interest. Personal interest is often misleading.
Claude Adrian Helvetius.

An honest life is the only religion.

Whoever obliges himself to say everything without concealment, he will oblige himself not to do what needs to be silent.
Michel de Montaigne.

Honest rich people are no more common than chickens with teeth.
Robert Harris.

Actually, now, when no one was looking at me and, I dare to hope, didn’t read my thoughts, one could leave this condescending tone, drive away the inner skeptic with a kick, hastily created once from the viscous clay of childhood disappointments specifically to simplify communications with the outside world, and honestly admit: in fact, I'm dying of curiosity and impatience.
Max Fry.

When you know that you lived honestly, life seems better and easier.
M.I. Kalinin.

Anyone who does not know the truth is simply a fool. But whoever knows it and calls it a lie is a criminal.
B. Brecht.

Sincerity in small doses is dangerous; in large ones it is deadly.
Oscar Wilde.

If you are honest, sooner or later you will come into conflict with your value system, and then you will have to separate the right from the permitted.
Tom Robbins.

Honesty is when you think to say one thing, but you tell the truth.
Alexander Perlyuk.

Your head is not hanging on his tongue. When it is chopped off, it will not fall.
Gleb Pakulov.

If the truth does not tell us what we should do, it will always tell us what we should not do or stop doing.
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Honesty is not the best answer, at least for the time being.
Danielle Steel.

The truth catches up with liars and false witnesses.
Heraclitus.

Truth, legality, virtue, justice, meekness - all this can be combined in the concept of "honesty".
Quintilian.

I don't play games, but I always say exactly what's on my mind. Showy shyness is for fools. If a man is afraid of your honesty, then he is not the one you need.
Mila Kunis.

Honesty is a wonderful concept. Too bad it has nothing to do with the war.
Orson Scott Card.

Better unsuccessfully to tell the truth than to keep silent about it, if the matter is serious.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

A naked statement is not necessarily a naked truth.
D. Prentice.

I did not notice that the honesty of people increased with their wealth.
Thomas Jefferson.

To tell the truth, a statesman must speak. To lie, it is enough for him to remain silent.
Saint John Perse.

I tend to think that if you are honest with yourself about what you want from life, life will give it to you.

Too honest to live, too noble to lie.
George Martin.

The people have the right to the truth, just as they have the right to life, freedom, the struggle for happiness.
F. Norris.

Men are too honest: they love only the one they love - up to marriage!
Marina Tsvetaeva.

An honest person is everyone's enemy.
Honore de Balzac.

Submission to the truth, regardless of personal interests and desires - this is all honesty, all morality.
I.I. Ogarev.

You may find me uninteresting because I am sincere.
Robert Walzer.

If we are not afraid to tell even the bitter and difficult truth straight out, we will certainly and unconditionally learn to overcome all and all difficulties.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

From childhood, we are taught that we need to be honest and decent, to achieve everything with work and abilities, but in reality it turns out that those who follow this are just complete losers in life, and those who lie, hypocrite, sleep achieve everything. with whom it is necessary and goes to its goal over the corpses.
Oleg Roy.

An honest person almost always speaks fairly.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

What is dishonestly acquired will go to waste.
Gnaeus Nevius.

Nudity is the best decoration of truth.
T. Fuller.

I was in the most ordinary situation - I wanted to be honest and could not help regretting that this honesty costs me too much.
Robertson Davis.

One must be able to recognize evil fearlessly in order to fight it more firmly.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

No one is as adept at approaching honesty as scammers.
Leonid Sukhorukov.

For an honest husband, the wife herself becomes honest.
Sax Hans.

It is not necessary to be kind: it is enough to be honest and attentive.
Absalom Underwater.

A person in love with the truth does not need to be a poet or a great man. Without any effort on his part, he is both a poet and great.
J. Renard.

Good morals are the reward of an honest man.
G.R. Derzhavin.

A brilliant story is rarely completely true.
S. Johnson.

Where there is honor, there is honesty.
Aishek Noram.

An honest person will always find an even more honest one who will shame him.
"Pshekrui".

Honesty, decency is already half of happiness.
E. Zola.

The truth, however cruelly expressed, should not be frightening to anyone.
ME AND. Pirogov.

Honesty is even dearer to decent people than learning to educated people.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Time is an honest man, as the Italians say, and they always tell the truth - time will show me who wishes me harm and who wishes me good.
Pierre Beaumarchais.

Tell me honestly...
- You don't have to continue.
Absalom Underwater.

If someone, out of respect for worthy people, refuses lust, serves his parents to the point of exhaustion, the sovereign - to the point of self-sacrifice, and in dealing with friends is honest in his words, then I, of course, will call such a scientist, even if others recognize him as ignorant.
Zi Xia (disciple of Confucius).

If a person did not have the opportunity to steal, this does not mean that he is honest.
Criswell Milley.

Well, as far as love is concerned... Here I can advise you one thing: always be honest. Honesty and justice are your main tools, only with their help you will be able to win someone's heart and earn someone's forgiveness.
Christopher Paolini.

The incorruptible eye of an honest man always worries swindlers.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Whoever does not tell the truth about himself cannot tell it about others.
Virginia Woolf.

If you hide the truth and bury it in the ground, it will certainly grow and acquire such strength that one day, when it breaks out, it will sweep away everything in its path.
E. Zola.

Only the unsullied can defeat the dishonest.
S. Vurgun.

Truly honest is the one who always asks himself if he is honest enough.
Titus Maccius Plautus.

Be honest. You can lie to anyone, even me. But you must always answer to yourself. It's simple. Somewhere in the back of your head you will always feel whether what you are doing is right or not. Measured risk with labels. Does your action bring you closer to the shining rod or, on the contrary, moves you away from it. Morality is relative, you'll be told. It's true. And this steel rod, shining, cold and ruthless, which sticks out at the back of your head - he will tell the truth.
Shimun Vrochek.

Honesty and accuracy are hindrances to rhetoric, they are not good for debate.
Martin Page.

The growth of claims and claims while the demand for honor and honesty is falling.
Evgeny Khankin.

Life is short, but honest, always prefer life long, but shameful.
Epictetus.

My greatest achievement is that I lived my life honestly. I hope you can call me a decent person. And this is more important to me than my life in art.
Fedor Sergeevich Bondarchuk.

Honesty is the simplest expression of the principle of truth.
Samuel Smiles.

Honesty does not bring salvation. But it leads to it.

Honesty is the most gambling game.
Neil Caffrey.

There is no fear in truth. Truth and fear are incompatible.
D.S. Likhachev.

The only thing by which every honest person should be guided in his actions is whether what he does is fair or unfair, and whether this is an act of a good or evil person.
Socrates.

Honesty is when you want to say one thing, but you tell the truth.
Guy Julius Orlovsky.

One must be truthful in everything, even in regard to the Motherland. Every citizen is obliged to die for his Motherland, but one can never be obliged to lie in the name of the Motherland.
C. Montesquieu.

Will there ever be a time when all people will live with dignity? Honestly so! Not for others, honestly, not for appearances, but for yourself? And that the supreme judge, the chief prosecutor for everyone would be himself?
Albert Likhanov.

Honesty alone is not enough to be right and useful; you also need consistency in ideas.
Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky.

Integrity is inseparable from honesty.

We are poor because we are honest.
Indian proverb.

It takes a lot of inner honesty to discover its lack in oneself.
Absalom Underwater.

You really need it, don't you? Okay, I'll tell you the truth. The truth is, the truth is bullshit. We live in a world filled with lies. I've tried all my life to live honestly, and look at me. If you want to change something in your life, you must resort to cunning. Do you want to be liked by the kids at school? Deceive. Lie about where you are from, who you are, what you have. And they will believe you. Because for the most part, they're stupid. In fact, you should remember one thing after 5th grade in high school: in our society, the winners always cheat and the liars always win.

You will not get sharp criticism from a person until you make him angry; the harsh truth is always spoken with bitterness.
G. Toro.

The truth requires perseverance: one must stand for the truth or hang on the cross, a person is moving towards the truth. Truth must be kept - the truth must be sought.
M. M. Prishvin.

To be honest, there is no light hidden. And what brings evil hides in the dark.
Valentin Pikul.

I don't know what's the point of being good. What's the point of being human? Since you are living, then live as a person, not a caterpillar. I don’t know, maybe you have to be good for yourself, maybe for others. I do not refuse to fight, only I will fight honestly, and if I use meanness myself, then I will no longer fight scoundrels, but for my place among them.
Daniel Granin.

If you want to be happy all your life - be an honest person.
Thomas Fuller.

He who is dishonest in the smallest things will soon lose all dignity altogether.
Ivan Efremov.

An honest poor man can sometimes forget his poverty.
An honest rich man never forgets his wealth.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

Honesty and accuracy are twins.
C. Simmons.

There is a price to be paid for believing in human honesty.
Sergey Lukyanenko.

I can't stand honesty. For the person himself, being honest is great, but for those around him, it is a nightmare. However, honesty is admirable.
Larry Kelly.

Honesty without knowledge is weak and meaningless, and knowledge without honesty is very dangerous.
Samuel Johnson.

I admire you. You say what you mean and it doesn't matter to you who you offend. Honesty and beauty - a combination that is impossible to resist.
Jeanne Kalogridis.

People who are supposedly noble hide their shortcomings both from others and from themselves, while people who are truly noble are perfectly aware of them and openly declare them.
F. La Rochefoucauld.

It is not at all required to always say in full what you think, that would be foolishness, but whatever you say must correspond to your thoughts; otherwise it is a malicious deception.
Michel de Montaigne.

If at least one person on earth becomes completely honest with himself, the lie will completely leave the planet.
Absalom Underwater.

There are people who are of the opinion that the truth is harmless only in diluted form.
O. Holmes.

What is honesty? Honesty is an open, sincere attitude. Dishonesty is a secret, hidden attitude.
A. S. Makarenko.

It is more fitting for a morally good person to show his honesty.
Honore de Balzac.

Ignorance of the truth does not prevent a person from being honest.
Absalom Underwater.

The truth should not depend on whom it should serve.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

If it is not always possible to tell the truth, then it does not follow from this that one must lie. I can't always say what I feel and think, but that doesn't mean that I should or must say what I don't feel or think.
W. Liebknecht.

There can be no honesty in something. It's not honesty if it's partial.
Yulian Semyonov.

Has anyone met an honest man who has blue eyes?
Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible.

One does not need to know much about human nature to understand that honesty is useless, and often even destructive.
John Christopher.

You are a terrible person.
- Just being honest. This world is terrible.
George Martin.

An honest and dishonest person is known not only from what they do, but also from what they desire.
Democritus.

Truth and an honest life - this is the goal of my thoughts.
Horace.

Honest people always have a bad habit of lowering their eyes in shame before insolence and impudent meanness.
Belinsky V. G.

Sometimes you have to choose between being kind or being honest. Sometimes a person cannot be both.
Cassandra Clare.

The capacity for indignation is the most important part of the armament of every honest man.
D. Lowell.

The further I went, the happier I became at the thought that I had overcome this grievous temptation. I thought that I had remained an honest man, that I had a strong will, that I, like a bright beacon, towered over the muddy human sea, where shipwrecks floated, and this filled me with pride.
Knut Hamsun.

Do not think that in order to speak and do the truth, it was necessary only in important matters. You must always speak and do the truth, even in the most empty deeds, do not allow yourself to lie. It is not important that a great or small evil comes from your unrighteousness, but it is expensive that you never defile yourself with a lie.
D. N. Tolstoy.

A limited honest person often sees through all the trickery of the subtlest businessmen.
Goethe I.

The only thing left for the materialist is faith in man.
Leshek Kumor.

The power of honesty is so great that we appreciate it even in the enemy.

Truth is the air without which you cannot breathe.
I. S. Turgenev.

An honest liar will never hide the truth, he always mixes it with his own lies.
Lassila Maya.

The truth approaches a person in a sense of strength and appears at the moment of the decision to fight: to fight for the truth, to stand for the truth. Not every force stands for the truth, but the truth always reports itself by force.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin.

A person is honest when his actions tend to the common good.
K. Helvetius.

The more honest a person is, the less he suspects others of dishonesty; a low soul always presupposes the lowest motives in noble deeds.
Mark Tullius Cicero.

There is a false kind of honesty which assumes that nothing should remain hidden, that everything should be said, expressed and communicated. Such frankness can be quite damaging. And if it does not bring direct harm, then it emasculates relationships, turning them into superficial, empty and often very tedious. When we create relationships without boundaries in an attempt to get rid of loneliness, we can suffocate in the too small space of such closeness. It is necessary to protect the "holy of holies" of one's own heart from uninvited intrusions, not only for the sake of one's own safety, but also for the good of a loved one. Just as words lose their power if they are not born from the depths of silence, so openness loses its value when there is no place for the innermost.
Henry Nuven.

It is little merit if a man is honest only because no one tries to bribe him.
Cicero.

Truth means the victory of conscience in a person.
M. M. Prishvin.

No matter how rare the truth is, the supply of it always exceeds the demand.
G. Shaw.

Probably, questions such as what is beauty, how to become happy are too boring and difficult for me, and therefore I tend to other criteria. Such, for example, as justice, honesty, universality.
Haruki Murakami.

In a fair fight, the crook wins.
Gennady Malkin.

Faith in man has its heresies and schisms.
Leshek Kumor.

Taking part in someone else's life, an honest person tries to preserve it.
Absalom Underwater.

Honesty is not only the first step to greatness, it is greatness itself.
C. Bowie.

Looking for honesty in big politics is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Konstantin Kushner.

Not only can we afford the truth, moreover, we only need it.
I. Becher.

Honesty is wealth, but he who owns it is doomed to poverty.
M. Arsanis.

Tell the truth and you will be original.
A.V. Vampilov.

Almost everything can be forgiven us for honesty: and, say, an insufficiently professional game, and even insufficiently professional poetry. There are many examples of this. But when honesty disappears, nothing is forgiven.
Viktor Tsoi.

The truth is always somewhat offensive, but it is also always useful.
M. Gorky.

A person should be honest by nature, not by circumstances.
Marcus Aurelius.

Honesty and disinterestedness as cultural values ​​become a museum rarity.
Konstantin Kushner.

We are obliged to tell the truth, but no one forces us to be honest.
Terry Pratchett.

All my efforts were to reduce the stupidity of people and add honesty to them.
Voltaire (Marie Francois Arouet).

The faithful do not need honesty, we need order.
Aishek Noram.

Honesty is the best policy.
English proverb.

My father always says, "Be honest and don't tolerate cheating."
Bro Mun.

There is, perhaps, not a single person in the world who, if he had the opportunity to become a swindler for a thousand thalers, would not prefer to remain an honest man for half that amount.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.

Sincerity is a difficult and very delicate matter, it requires wisdom and great spiritual tact.
V.V. Veresaev.

My intentions are always honest. For me.
Lydia Lunch.

If you are honest - do not hang out with the dishonest, do not rub yourself near the soot - you yourself will get dirty.
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.

Maybe I will meet a centaur, or a dragon, or even an honest person.
Dexter Morgan.

Whether you're strong or not, honesty is honesty.
William Golding.

We, if it is not the desire for valor that prompts us to be honest men, but this or that benefit and advantage, are cunning, and not honest.
Mark Tullius Cicero.

The first sign of the deterioration of public morals is the disappearance of truth, for truthfulness lies at the basis of all virtue.
M. Montaigne.

Honest people can never believe in evil that they themselves are not capable of doing; that's why the first swindler who comes across easily fools them and that's why it's so easy, but so humiliating, to deceive them.
Marquis de Sade.

It's hard to be smart and sincere at the same time, especially in a feeling...
Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov.

Hiding anything from friends is dangerous; but it is even more dangerous not to hide anything from them.
Jean de La Fontaine.

In time, the truth will come out.
Menander.

He who is true to himself and to others, and always remains so, has the best quality of the greatest talents.
I. Goethe.

No one despises an honest woman as much as an honest woman.
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva.

Telling the truth is like lighting a match: it can give you light, but it can also set the whole world on fire...
Erica Strange.

I was somewhat surprised by the words of my friend, who studied cosmology and astronomy. He was going to speak on the radio and thought about how to explain what the practical value of his work. I said it just doesn't exist. “Yes, but then we will not receive financial support for further research,” he replied. I think it's unfair. If you are acting as a scientist, you must explain to people what you are doing. And if they decide not to fund your research, well, that's their right.
Richard Feynman.

When a robbery takes place in broad daylight with the permission of the law, which is what happens today, an act of honor or reparation is done clandestinely.
Ayn Rand.

Honesty is the best and at the same time the most justified course of action.
John Lubbock.

Nothing is so beautiful to the eye as the truth is to the mind; nothing is so ugly and irreconcilable with reason as a lie.
D. Locke.

Only the truth, no matter how hard it is, is easy.
A. Blok.

If you don't know how to be honest, then the payoff is pain and suffering - anyway.
Jacque Fresco.

Better to be an honest sinner than a pious deceiver.
Finnish proverb.

People go through life as they earn money: some - honestly, others - steal.
Absalom Underwater.

Honesty is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman.
Joseph Pulitzer.

For some reason, no one teaches us taste, and they teach us a lot, tediously, habitually, according to the old and completely decrepit recipe: it’s not good to steal, you need to live honestly, righteously, respect your elders; but the mentors and moralists themselves most often steal more than others, and devour from a separate trough, completely brushing aside the morality with which people are stuffed from the public platform. The thief, who demands honesty from others, is a long-standing, but not obsolete acquisition of mankind in our days, which has cheerfully risen in our new field. And he, a thief, desperately needs honest people, detachments of honest and decent people, high morality, behind which he could hide, like behind a painted fence, otherwise, being a thief among thieves, he will die of hunger and there will be no one to educate him.
Viktor Astafiev.

Sincerity is sincerity. Few people have this quality.
François de La Rochefoucauld.

Honesty is desirable, but not always reasonable.
Hercule Poirot.

Power endows a person with many things, but honesty and integrity are rarely among its gifts.
Robert Harris.

Truth sometimes bends, but never breaks, and floats over lies like oil over water.
M. Cervantes.

A person from childhood must think about everything that he sees, suffer from dishonesty, fight lies and must be honest, first of all, with himself.
José Marty.

A person who is ashamed has an inherent desire to live honestly.
Benedict Spinoza.

War makes many honest people thieves.
George Martin.

Psychologists have long assumed that the evolution of cooperation and altruism in humans should have led to the development of special adaptations for remembering untrustworthy fellow tribesmen. Experiments, however, have shown that the names and faces of deceivers are no better remembered than the names and faces of honest people. The difference is that facts that damage the reputation of people we know are remembered much better than information about good or neutral deeds.

Cooperation, mutual assistance and altruism play a huge role in the life of human collectives. Long gone are the days when the development of altruism seemed difficult to explain from the standpoint of natural science. Under certain conditions, genes (more precisely, genetic variations - alleles) that provide a tendency to cooperative and altruistic behavior are distributed in the population even if it is more profitable for each individual individual to behave selfishly and not help anyone. About how this happens, "Elements" has already written more than once (see the selection of links in the article Intergroup wars - the reason for altruism?, "Elements", 06/05/2009). Strictly speaking, from the point of view of an individual, selfishness is, by definition, always more profitable than altruism.

However, it is more correct to consider any adaptations from the point of view of their benefit not for an individual, but for distribution of genes, which are responsible for the formation of these adaptations. Natural selection can take place at different levels, but its results are fixed ("remembered") only at the level of genes - and nothing else. The “altruism gene” can literally doom its carriers to death, but it will still spread - for example, thanks to the “kin selection” mechanism (by sacrificing itself, an individual saves its relatives, many of which carry copies of the same “altruism gene "). Selfless parental care for offspring is the most widespread result of kin selection.

Therefore, “altruism genes” usually spread in the gene pool of a population in close collaboration with “anti-deceiver genes” (see: Altruism of social insects is supported by police methods, Elements, 08.11.2006).

Reciprocal altruism implies the ability of individuals to single out from among their relatives those who have proven themselves to be selfish, and not have anything to do with them. Thus, two goals are achieved at once: selfishness is “punished” (the profitability of selfish behavior decreases), and an individual that avoids communication with selfish people increases its chances of not being deceived. Based on these considerations, evolutionary psychologists suggest that natural selection must have developed special psychological adaptations in our ancestors to help identify and remember deceivers. This hypothesis has a number of testable consequences. In particular, she predicts that our ability to remember deceivers may be more developed in us than other similar abilities - for example, to remember people with a good or unknown reputation.

Several studies have already been carried out to test this prediction. In general, it was confirmed; however, some unexpected details were discovered and new questions arose.

“Remembering a deceiver” consists of two parts: first, you need to remember the person himself, and secondly, that he is a deceiver. These are two fundamentally different tasks, which do not necessarily always have to be performed simultaneously and in concert. You can, for example, remember a person's face, but at the same time forget under what circumstances we saw him and what his reputation is. Theoretically, these two aspects of the memory of deceivers can be developed to different degrees in people, although it is not so easy to distinguish them in the experiment (and so far this has not usually been done).

Recently, German psychologists from Düsseldorf have shown that people remember the faces of deceivers no better and no worse than the faces of respectable citizens. However, information about dishonest deeds committed by deceivers is imprinted in our memory more effectively than information about the good deeds of kind people or the neutral deeds of persons of unknown reputation (see: Axel Buchner, Raoul Bell, Bettina Mehl, Jochen Musch. // Evolution and Human Behavior. 2009. V. 30. P. 212–224). In principle, this makes sense, given that the capacity of our memory is not infinite, and numerous and varied social contacts are vital. If we remembered the bad people first, there would be less room in our memory to remember the people we could deal with. But if, for one reason or another, we remember a certain person, and we know that we cannot trust him, then it is very important to put the appropriate “tick” in our memory so that in the future, if possible, do not contact him.

In an article published June 22 in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, the same authors reported on a new series of experiments in which it was shown that the memorization of people's names, depending on their reputation, is subject to the same pattern as the memorization of faces. Thus, on the one hand, the previously identified regularity was confirmed, on the other hand, an argument was obtained against the popular hypothesis, according to which the mechanism of remembering deceivers has a particularly close specific connection with the face recognition system.

The experiment involved 193 people (111 women and 82 men) aged 18 to 52 years. The same methodology was used as in the previous work, with the difference that instead of faces, the subjects were presented with names. Testing was carried out individually. First, the subject was given a list of 36 common male names to read, with each name accompanied by brief information about the type of activity of this person. A third of the people were described as deceivers, a third as honest people, and neutral information was reported about the remaining third, from which it was impossible to draw a conclusion about the moral qualities of a person. For example, such stories were used as "compromising" information: "HE sells old cars and at the same time often hides information about serious defects in his goods from buyers." An example of a positive characteristic: "He sells cheese, while he always allows customers to try cheese and does not try to sell stale goods."

All features were of the same length (21 words in German) and had all previously been tested in independent tests. It has been shown that "negative" characteristics do cause a negative reaction, positive ones - a positive one.

For each subject, the names and characteristics used were combined randomly. Participants had to indicate, on the basis of a six-point scale, how much they liked the person. As expected, cheaters got the lowest scores, honest people the highest.

At the second stage, the subject was shown 72 names in random order - 36 "old" ones, already familiar to him from the first stage of testing, and the same number of "new" names. The names this time were not accompanied by any additional information. The subject had to indicate whether the given name is old or new. If he believed that the name was old, then the next question was whether this person is a deceiver, honest, or nothing definite can be said about his reputation.

The results obtained were subjected to rather complex statistical processing, which made it possible to divide the act of remembering into two components: remembering the name itself and remembering the moral qualities of its bearer. In this case, of course, the probability of random guessing was taken into account.

It turned out that remembering the names themselves is completely independent of the reputation of their carriers. In other words, the names of deceivers, honest people, and people of unknown reputation were remembered by the subjects with equal efficiency. However, information about the moral character of deceivers was remembered much better than similar information about honest and "neutral" personalities. Thus, we are not inclined to selectively remember deceivers, but if we happen to remember a given person, then the facts that discredit his reputation will be remembered with special care.

The results obtained suggest that the mechanism for remembering deceivers appears to be more universal and less "specific" than previously thought. Some experts suggested that for the selective memory of information about deceivers in the brain, there is a special module that is closely related to the facial recognition system. This was facilitated by the fact that so far in most of these experiments, the subjects were asked to memorize faces. Now, however, it has become clear that the point here is not in the faces - the names "work" no worse. Therefore, if a special "deceiver memory module" exists, it is not strictly tied to the face recognition system and can use other "personal identifiers", including names.

Perhaps the increased efficiency of remembering compromising information about people is due to the fact that such information evokes a stronger emotional response in us (indignation, anger) than information about good deeds. Such a differentiated emotional response, in turn, can also be interpreted as an evolutionary adaptation. It is beneficial for us to react more sharply to antisocial acts than to good ones, and it is better to remember them, because they are more informative. In human society, "good" behavior (cooperative, altruistic) is in many cases simply more beneficial than antisocial behavior. Therefore, even people who by nature are very prone to deceit and fraud, very often behave honestly, pursuing their own selfish interests - this does not say much. Antisocial actions, on the contrary, betray the egoist with his head.