Candour Quotes

• There is a popular superstition that "realism" asserts itself in the cataloguing of a great number of material objects, in explaining mechanical processes, the methods of operating manufactories and trades, and in minutely and unsparingly describing physical sensations. But is not realism, more than it is anything else, an attitude of mind on the part of the writer toward his material, a vague indication of the sympathy and candour with which he accepts, rather than chooses, his theme?

  Willa Cather

  Attitude, Numbers, Mind

  Willa Cather (1988). “Not Under Forty”, p.45, U of Nebraska Press

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

  Tom Hanks

  Optimistic, Optimism, Tolerance

  15 Copy quote

• I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naive candour of a child.

  Claude Debussy

  Children, Vision, Wish

  "Claude Debussy: His Life and Works". Book by Léon Vallas, p. 226, 1933.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• We also believe candour benefits us as managers. The CEO who misleads often in public eventually misleads himself in private.

  Warren Buffett

  Believe, Benefits, Ceo

  9 Copy quote

• We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.

  James Callaghan

  War, Cutting, Thinking

  Labour Party Annual Conference Report, (p. 188), 1976.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible

  Samuel Johnson

  Reading, Remember, Injury

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.319

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Criticism, Gems

  "Curiosities of Literature". Book by Isaac D'Israeli, 1791 - 1834.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A true party-man hates and despises candour.

  Adam Smith

  Hate, Party, Men

  Adam Smith (1853). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, An Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. To which is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages”, p.219

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of the dining car, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again.

  Paul Theroux

  Journey, People, Car

  4 Copy quote

• Such pretensions to nicety in experiments of this nature, are truly laughable! They will be telling us some day of the WEIGHT of the MOON, even to drams, scruples and grains-nay, to the very fraction of a grain!-I wish there were infallible experiments to ascertain the quantum of brains each man possesses, and every man's integrity and candour:-This is a desideratum in science which is most of all wanted.

  Robert Sutton Harrington

  Integrity, Science, Moon

  7 Copy quote