Noun

Singular honesty

Plural countable and uncountable; plural honesties

honesty (countable and uncountable; plural honesties)

1. (uncountable) The act, quality, or condition of being honest; to be truthful
2. Any of various crucifers in the genus Lunaria, several of which are grown as ornamentals.

Antonyms

• dishonesty

Honesty is the value of speaking truth and creating trust in minds of others. This includes all varieties of communication, both verbal and non-verbal. Honesty implies a lack of deceit. A statement can be strictly true and still be dishonest if the intention of the statement is to deceive its audience. Similarly, a falsehood can be spoken honestly if the speaker actually believes it to be true.

Honesty is typically considered virtuous behavior, and has strong positive connotations in most situations. A principal reason for this may be that honesty simplifies communication, in that honest statements can be trusted at face value, not necessarily as true, but as genuinely believed. Additionally, honesty helps to form bonds of trust in human relationships.

Conversely, dishonesty can be defined simply as behavior that is performed with intent to deceive. Lying, lying by omission, fraud, and plagiarism are all examples of this sort of behavior. Other examples can be doing one thing and telling the other, as if you are hiding something.

While there are a great many moral systems, generally speaking, honesty is considered moral and dishonesty is considered immoral. There are several exceptions, such as hedonism, which values honesty only insofar as it improves ones own sense of pleasure, and moral nihilism, which denies the existence of objective morality outright. Additionally, even in moral systems which approve in general of honesty over dishonesty, there are situations in which dishonesty may be preferable.

Quotations about honesty.

Sourced

• "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."
  • 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

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Wed Jul 8 02:48:14 2009