Honesty
Overview
 
Honesty refers to a facet of moral character
Moral character
Moral character or character is an evaluation of a particular individual's durable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits...

 and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity
Integrity
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...

, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying
Lie
For other uses, see Lie A lie is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others....

, cheating
Cheating
Cheating refers to the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process. Cheating can refer...

, or theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

.

Additionally an honest person will inform others of opportunities for growth and self-actualization. Secrets allowing people to be harmed, self-deception - not being aware of one's own environment, and remaining silent when duty calls forth an opinion become silences which hurt others in the long-run.
Quotations

"All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness."

Montaigne, Of Pedantry

"An honest man's the noblest work of God."

Alexander Pope, Essay on Man Epistle IV

"But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

Dr. Johnson, quoted in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) by James Boswell July 14, 1763, p. 123

"Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you."

Billy Joel, song lyrics Honesty

"Honesty is the best policy."

English proverb, 16th century

"No legacy is so rich as honesty."

William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

"When men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find them so to each other will be much disappointed."

George Horne|Bishop Horne, A Commentary on the Book of Psalm, psalm XII

"No man is bound to be rich or great, no, nor to be wise; but every man is bound to be honest."

Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Hansard's Parliamentary History p. 235, March 1627

"Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds."

Benjamin Franklin, The Art of Making Money Plenty, in Every Man’s Pocket

"To be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act II Scene II

 
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