Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals.

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy.Bothyourreligionand policy must be basedon it.

If I have one wish which is greater than another, it is, if I had the power, to make men do right; to make them stop their swearing, their lying, their deceiving, to stop trying to injure the innocent, and begin to be honest and upright in all their dealings with one another and honor the name of the Deity.

Integrity is the courage and self-discipline to cooperate and initiate according to the Divine, which you know in your heart as Truth.

The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.

Compromise on ethical conduct is not an option.

All you should try to do is behave with honour. If you can. At all times.

Honesty is the best policy ; a policy is, after all, a strategy for living in the polis in the city.

Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences.

Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?

Do what is right, and you'll have no lasting regrets. Do what is right, and put yourself on the side of truth, goodness, and the best of life.

In my heart, I never called one wrong.

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

A good man with a good conscience doesn't walk so fast.

Throughout my life, I have always tried to do what is right.

Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a long way in life, if founded on a just estimate of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he knows and feels to be right.

Live truth instead of professing it.

I don't think lying has any ultimate justification. I don't think it ever leads to anything positive. The good fight to have is not to lie. That's one of the challenges in a way.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception.

I'm never going to take the view that I should say whatever I need to say in order to achieve something. Because that implies a level of dishonesty.