I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead--and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.
The good four. Honest with ourselves and with whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy; generous toward the vanquished; polite-always that is how the four cardinal virtues want us.
You may charge me with murder--or want of sense--
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!
Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.
I think that I work hard to make my music as a diary for new generations who find out about it years later. They can go through the history and see a trail. It's straight and narrow, you can see the growth and understand that I'm not afraid to give you honesty and be honest about anything that has to do with my story.
You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.
There is no well defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in the one domain and sometimes in the other.
Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense."... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.