Theodore Parker Quotes

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

I consider myself an honest soul.

Truthfulness is godliness.

The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," - it is greatness itself.

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.

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical.

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

Truth will prevail.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

I thank God that I left office the same way I came in: with integrity.

I shall produce nothing that will offend the proprieties, whether applied to children or grownups. My pictures are turned out with clean hands and, therefore, with a clear conscience which, like virtue, is its own reward.

It seems to me that if God calls us to anything it's to a life of integrity.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Never lie when the truth is more profitable.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Integrity is the core of our character. Without integrity, we have a weak foundation upon which to build other Christlike characteristics.

Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world.

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

Tell the truth and shame the devil.