It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
You know I say just what I think, and nothing more nor less.—I cannot say one thing and mean another.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank… . Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can’t tolerate.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
It is the weak and confused who worship the pseudo-simplicities of brutal directness.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American Writer, Poet, Critic, Editor
Inward sincerity will of course influence the outward deportment; where the one is wanting, there is great reason to suspect the absence of the other.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his true friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the greatest highroad to his reason, and which when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if, indeed, that cause be really a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to make him as one to be shunned or despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.—It is the cause of patience; gives endurance; overcomes pain; strengthens weakness; braves dangers; sustains hope; makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Weak people cannot be sincere.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
If all hearts were open and all desires known—as they would be if people showed their souls—how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
The sincere alone can recognize sincerity.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The great man fights the elements in his time that hinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and sincerity.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Sincerity is like traveling on a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey’s end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.
—John Tillotson
Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Sincerity gives wings to power.
—Unknown
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Be always sincere in your yea and your nay.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
Frank and explicit; that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State