SINCERITY

Related Subjects: Candor, Honesty, Hypocrisy, Trust

1. It is often said it is no matter what a man believes if he is only sincere. But let a man sincerely believe that seed planted without ploughing is as good as with; that January is as favorable for seed-sowing as April; and that cockle seed will produce as good a harvest as wheat, and is it so?—H. W. BEECHER
   

2. The whole faculties of man must be exerted in order to call forth noble energies; and he who is not earnestly sincere lives in but half his being, self-mutilated, self-paralyzed.—COLERIDGE
   

3. Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue.—CONFUCIUS, Analects
   

4. Sincerity is no test of truth—no evidence of correctness of conduct. You may take poison sincerely believing it the needed medicine, but will it save your life?—TRYON EDWARDS
   

5. Sincerity is the indispensable ground of all conscientiousness, and by consequence of all heartfelt religion.—KANT
   

6. True sincerity sends for no witness.—Proverb
   

7. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
   

8. Before the world I must deal sincerely with you, however light a turn I may give my sincerity. I owe that to your dignity as an artist and to my profession. But in private I only want to please you, which makes me a liar and an actor.—BERNARD SHAW, to Ellen Terry
   

9. 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.—STERNE