George Bernard Shaw Quotes

If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.

Governor [Myron] Herrick is not a bad man; he is simply weak. He is one of those men who can do dishonest things honestly.

Actually I don't know if honesty is a strength or some kind of weakness.

that when given the opportunity, many honest people will cheat.

There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse.

An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave: the best and the worst are only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself: Who are those that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quan∣tum of congruities and incongruities.

I do not believe we can blame genetics for adultery, homosexuality, dishonesty and other character flaws.

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

Most people are not good people. In business, in art, in almost every 'world' I've been in, most people I've meet are pretty gray to black. It takes practice to be the person who is a source of compassion and honesty.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.

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.

His head was full of larceny, but his feet were honest.

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.

He is only honest who is not discovered.

I do not believe with the Rochefoucaults and the Montaignes that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues. I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty.

We suppose mankind more honest than they are.

We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.

Living on hypocrisy is not a healthy diet for patriots.

If I had walked into a dry cleaning store, and I had looked over, and the register drawer was open with money inside, I wouldn't have taken it.

An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist.