Quotes about candor

Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant.

— Thomas B. Aldrich

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

— William Blake

Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.

— James F. Cooper

Frank and explicit -- that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.

— Benjamin Disraeli

Candor is the brightest gem of criticism.

— Benjamin Disraeli

There is no wisdom like frankness.

— Benjamin Disraeli

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

— George Eliot

A No uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a Yes merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

— Mahatma Gandhi

If all hearts were open and all desires known -- as they would be if people showed their souls -- how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!

— Thomas Hardy

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

— William Hazlitt

We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.

— William James

You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.

— George Macdonald

It is the weak and confused who worship the pseudosimplicities of brutal directness.

— Marshall Mcluhan

Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

— George Orwell

Examine what is said, not him who speaks.

— Arabian Proverb