Honest Man Quotes - Page 3

• An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.

  Aristophanes

  Men, Wicked, Honest

  Aristophanes (2013). “The Eleven Comedies”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• Though this motion for a new trial is an application to the discretion of the Court, it must be remembered that the discretion to be exercised on such an occasion is not a wild but a sound discretion, and to be confined within those limits within which an honest man, competent to discharge the duties of his office, ought to confine himself. And that discretion will be best exercised by not deviating from the rules laid down by our predecessors; for the practice of the Court forms the law of the Court.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Men, Law, Practice

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• There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Two, Rogues

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.115

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• Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Party, Men

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• A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man.

  William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

  Men, Principles, Fool

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• A few honest men are better than numbers.

  Oliver Cromwell

  Education, Truth, Honesty

  Letter to Sir William Spring, September 1643, in Thomas Carlyle 'Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches' (2nd ed., 1846)

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• I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Men, Mind

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• All my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it.

  Robert Burns

  Fear, Men, World

  Robert Burns, William Gunnyon (1867). “The complete works of Robert Burns, including his correspondence, etc”, p.307

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• A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle class unit.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Class, Wife

  'Man and Superman' (1903) 'Maxims: Moderation'

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• To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has never had a chance, poor devil, you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.

  Margot Asquith

  Marriage, Strong, Character

  Margot Asquith (1920). “The Autobiography of Margot Asquith”

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• An honest man is strange when he is among dishonest men, but it is a good kind of strangeness.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  God, Christian, Religious

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• The universe is not rich enough to buy the vote of an honest man.

  Pope Gregory I

  Men, Voting, Honest

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• Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Brother, Integrity, Simple

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• The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors

  Charles Peguy

  Honesty, Men, Errors

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• If anybody ever dares to compare Bob Dole to Clinton, then they're comparing a criminal to an honest man.

  Sonny Bono

  Men, Criminals, Bob

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• To an honest man, it is an honor to have remembered his duty.

  Plautus

  Men, Honor, Honest

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• I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.

  J. William Fulbright

  Men, Thinking, Differences

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• An honest man always values earning honor over wealth.

  Rembrandt

  Men, Honor, Earning

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• An honest man is in Hell when he is in debt.

  J. Golden Kimball

  Men, Debt, Honest

  J. Golden Kimball (2008). “J. Golden Kimball: His Sermons”, p.273, Latter-day Publishing

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• Men are as we have always known them, neither better nor worse from the hearts of rogues there springs a latent honesty, from the depths of honest men there emerges a brutish appetite - a thirst for extermination, a desire for blood.

  Federica Montseny

  Honesty, Spring, Heart

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• A thief, though rich, will continue to steal, but an honest man, though poor, will ever seek to pay his debts.

  John Andreas Widtsoe

  Men, Thieves, Debt

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• It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.

  George Santayana

  War, Men, Blood

  George Santayana (1986). “The Works of George Santayana”

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• I think most corporate executives are good honorable honest men and women who do good work.

  Don Nickles

  Men, Thinking, Honest

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• The life of an honest man must be a perpetual infidelity.

  Charles Peguy

  Honesty, Men, Infidelity

  "Basic Verities, Prose and Poetry" by Charles Peguy, translated by Ann and Julien Green, (p. 51), 1943.

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• An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Exercise, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.185

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