James Weldon Johnson Quotes

He is only honest who is not discovered.

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

People seldom tell the truths that are worth telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our lies and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon the selection of our enemies.

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

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

There's good and bad everywhere in any aspect in life. The only people who we can't really trust are politicians. Because those guys lie to everybody and constantly.

It is helpful to think of people as having two fundamental motivations: the desire to see ourselves as honest, good people, and the desire to gain the benefits that come from cheating - on our taxes or on the football field.

When you're on the side of the angels, it's easier to stretch the truth.

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

Living on hypocrisy is not a healthy diet for patriots.

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

Observe this, that tho a woman swear, forswear, lie, dissemble, back-bite, be proud, vain, malicious, anything, if she secures the main chance, she's still virtuous; that's a maxim.

You become uneasy with people in direct proportion to how many lies you have to keep track of in their presence.

If people are dishonest once, they will be dishonest a second time. And honest people should keep away from them. (Lady Chiltern)

On the whole, I should say that the person who likes to lie should never, in any circumstances, be allowed to. Leave the lying to the people who hate it. You will not find them indulging often.

There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors.

Your thoughts should agree with your words, and the words should agree with your actions. In this world people think one thing, say another thing, and do something else. This is horrible. This is crookedness.

There is no well defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in the one domain and sometimes in the other.

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

So I wasn't lying, exactly. I was just choosing among truths.

You can always cheat an honest man, but it takes more work.

The life of an honest man must be a perpetual infidelity.

God grant to all of us the power and strength to be people of integrity, and the insight and wisdom to avoid being led into the snares of the dishonest.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.