The Best Policy Quotes

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.

You're not going to say anything about me that I'm not going to say about myself. There's so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I'm going to say it before they can. It's the best policy for me.

Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while

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

Honesty is the best policy.

In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

I have been very successful in handling people who hurl abuse simply by being patient. Ignoring them is the best policy because afterwards, it's the fans that criticise these so-called celebrities for their bad conduct.

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.

The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.

Obviously, I can’t say that the best man won, but the best policy did.

Honesty, like my mama always says, is always the best policy.

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

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions.

In my experience, honesty is the best policy. And being a friend to somebody is not always the best way to help them.

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.

The best policy is to declare victory and leave.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

People like to see honest persons. So I certainly will advise many young people who want to participate in politics, honesty is the best policy.

The thing that I think a lot of guys need to know how to do is not take your mother's advice about honesty being the best policy. Listen to your cool, drunk uncle who tells you to lie. Those are the relationships that last.

Ethel Merman would stay with a show for years and tour with it. So would Mary Martin, the great stars. They recognized the value of that success and nurtured it. Now, you come from Hollywood, you play 12 weeks and go away. I don't think that's the best policy.

Honesty is the best policy; the only way out is deeper in: a candid confrontation with existence is dizzying, liberating.

I have seen throughout my professional career that the robust exchange of ideas and bipartisan compromises can bring about the best policy results.

Certainly he [Richard M. Nixon] is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy.

In the long run, I believe that honesty is definitely the best policy. One can get away by being dishonest for a short term, but ultimately, honesty is what pays.