David Attenborough Quotes

Honesty is a complex and tricky thing, and we don't want to be honest all the time.

I always mean what I say, but I don't always say what I'm thinking.

Not knowing the answer is better than consciously misleading.

When I became press secretary my father sent me a telegram and said, "Tell the truth if you can and if you can't tell the truth, don't tell a lie." That became very difficult to do.

… in politics, just as anywhere else in life, it is impossible and it would not be sensible always to say everything bluntly. Yet that does not mean one has to lie. What is needed here are tact, instinct and good taste.

If there is one thing that our role models in this election have taught us, it's that omitting important information is completely different from lying.

When we tell little white lies, we become progressively color-blind. It is better to remain silent than to mislead.

It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.

When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal.

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

I'm not always the most diplomatic person.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.

Twenty five years in Washington has taught me never to tell a lie to a reporter.

My instructions were, "You don't lie. You put your own interpretation on the truth.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

We have to be responsible in what we say as leaders.

Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.

Dyson's Law: Do ask; don't lie.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.