Plato Quotes

The reason he [Jimmy Carter] says he never lies is because he thinks the truth originates with him.

I don't like false modesty.

For me to say I wasn't a genius I'd just be lying to you and to myself

If you find something to tell, tell it to your truest, though that make little to tell; the truer you speak, the more you will know to tell.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing

I'm not one of those people that pretends he doesn't watch himself.

People ask me about past projects I've worked on, and other things; I'm just really bad at lying. I have a bad poker face, so I just try to tell people how I'm feeling in the moment and really what I was trying to do.

The second you're not honest with yourself, you've lost everything.

If I pretended to be confident all the time, that would just be a lie.

If you can't be honest with yourself, then you can't be honest with anybody.

The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain" - that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain" - that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.

One of the blessings of maturity is that it sometimes brings one greater courage to be truthful, regardless of what those who do not understand may think or say

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you.

How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.

If your not honest with yourself, how the hell are you gonna be honest with me.

If we judge our lives by what we know or by what we say, we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we are something we are not; it is wiser to evaluate ourselves by the amount of truth we actually live. This is very humbling.

Men must be honest with themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with himself presents a hopeless case.

I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses itself any reaction with regard to itself or its deeds. This virtue differs from and surpasses sincerity. We see many people who are sincere without being simple. They do not wish to be taken for other than what they are; but they are always fearing lest they should be taken for what they are not.

He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he know how to speak the truth.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

The more sincerity is developed, the greater share of truth you will have. And however much sincerity a person may have, there is always a gap to fill, for we live in the midst of falsehood, and we are always apt to be carried away by this world of falsehood. Therefore we must never think we are sincere enough, and we must always be on our guard against influences which may carry us away from that sincerity which is the bridge between ourselves and our ideal. No study, no meditation is more helpful than sincerity itself.

The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are.