Honest men live on charity in their age; the almshouses are full of men who never stole a copper penny. Honest men are the fools and the saints.
For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active and informed engagement of every citizen.
. . . men seldom risk their lives where an escape is without hope of recompense.
The theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at least men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honest. There is little support for that theory in known facts.
Men must be honest with themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with himself presents a hopeless case.
The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.
My experience has proved that a man who is running for office, and is not willing to make his honest opinions known to the public, either has no honest opinions or is not honest about them.
I'm not looking for 'outer esteem' anymore, what they call 'other esteem.' I'm looking for self-esteem. And people think that self-esteem is built with accomplishments. And, 'Hey, look what I did in my life.'
What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, in this respect, a most marked contrast exists between public men in this country and in Great Britain.
Esteem must be founded on preference: to hold everyone in high esteem is to esteem nothing.
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.
Women love an honest man. An honest man that isn't afraid to say, 'Men get hurt too.' And a lot of men don't admit that.
You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.
There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.
We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept nothing less . . . This condition of freedom, equality, and democracy is not the gift of gods. It is the task of men, yes, men, brave men, honest men, determined men.