Honesty Quotes For Kids
These honesty quotes for kids can help children learn about truth, integrity, and honor in a straight-forward and fun way.
You’ll find cool quotes from amazing people who understand the power of truth and how it can guide a child’s life.
Their wise words will help kids navigate the sometimes tricky world of honesty, making them a truth-telling champion!
What is honesty?
Famous writer and philosopher John Ruskin once said, “To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.” That’s because honesty, like a sturdy bridge, connects us to others. It lets us build friendships, learn, and grow in a safe and trusting way.
A kid-friendly definition of honesty:
Being honest means telling the truth even when it’s not easy, like admitting you snuck a cookie when no one was looking — even if it gets you in trouble.
It’s also about acting truthfully, like not peeking at another student’s answers when you’re taking an exam in school.
Honesty helps build bridges of trust with friends and family. It makes people feel safe and happy knowing you’re a truthful person.
It’s helpful to remember, even superheroes make mistakes sometimes but the bravest ones always come clean and try to fix things. That’s the true super power of honesty!
Ten honesty quotes for kids to live by
1. Honesty is the best policy.
Unknown
2. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain
3. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.
Malala Yousafsai
4. Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.
J.C. Watts
5. If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf
6. It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
George Washington
7. Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau
8. The time is always right to do what is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
9. Be always sure you’re right, then go ahead.
Davy Crocket
10. Honesty is often very hard. The truth is often painful. But the freedom it can bring is worth the trying.
Fred Rogers
Short honesty sayings
11. The truth shall set you free.
The Bible, John 8:31
12. You can’t lie to your soul.
Irvine Welsh
13. No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare
14. Honesty prospers in every condition of life.
Friedrich Schiller
15. Honesty is something you can’t wear out.
Waylon Jennings
16. A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.
Edgar J. Mohn
17. Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Mahatma Gandhi
18. Honest hearts produce honest actions.
Brigham Young
19. The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.
John Lyly
20. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth.
Khaled Hosseini
21. You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.
Alan Moore
22. Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
Khaled Hosseini
Funny honesty quotes
23. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain
24. The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
Groucho Marx
25. There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.
Mark Twain
26. Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain’t lawful tender for a loaf of bread.
Josh Billings
Inspirational honesty quotes for kids
27. When you know better, you do better.
Beth Elkassih
28. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
29. Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
Paulo Coelho
30. Be honest in your life, it creates positive energy, stopping all unfairness through life.
Fathima Bibi Joosab
31. The high road is always respected. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.
Scott Hamilton
32. We learned about honesty and integrity, that the truth matters, that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.
Michelle Obama
33. For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.
Bo Bennett
34. Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.
James Altucher
Motivational sayings
35. It takes strength and courage to admit the truth.
Rick Riordan
36. When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite and commitment, the input reflects the output.
A. R. Rahman
37. Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.
Vernon Howard
38. Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right.
Mario Cuomo
39. I think honesty is the most heroic quality one can aspire to.
Daniel Radcliffe
40. If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.
Alan Simpson
41. Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
Marcus Aurelius
42. When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity — regardless of what others may do — you are destined for greatness.
Napoleon Hill
Wise honesty quotes for kids
43. To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
Mahatma Gandhi
44. Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.
William Shakespeare
45. To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.
Criss Jami
46. The greatest truth is honesty, and the greatest falsehood is dishonesty.
Abu Bakr
47. Telling the truth and making someone cry is better than telling a lie and making someone smile.
Paulo Coelho
48. Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
Spencer Johnson
49. You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
Malcolm Forbes
50. The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Zen sayings
51. Honesty is the first step to an abundant life.
Lao Tzu
52. To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
Confucius
Honesty quotes about friendship and love
53. Love is honesty. Love is a mutual respect for one another.
Simone Elkeles
54. An honest answer is the sign of true friendship.
E.W. Howe
55. We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
Robert Louis Stevenson
56. The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
Zig Ziglar
57. Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.
John Lennon
58. To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.
Charles Dickens
59. Honesty and loyalty are key. If two people can be honest with each other about everything, that’s probably the biggest key to success.
Taylor Lautner
Famous honesty quotes for kids
60. I cannot tell a lie.
George Washington
61. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
Walter Scott
62. Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
Albert Einstein
63. Honesty first; then courage; then brains — and all are indispensable.
Theodore Roosevelt
64. Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.
Sigmund Freud
65. Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
Plato
66. Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Albert Einstein
67. If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
By Abraham Lincoln
68. No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.
Abraham Lincoln
69. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.
Abraham Lincoln
70. I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.
Abraham Lincoln
71. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln
From famous authors and books
72. Anything is better than lies and deceit!
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
73. Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.
Jane Austen
74. You ask me what forces me to speak? A strange thing; my conscience.
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
75. There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
Charles Dickens
76. I meant what I said and I said what I meant.
Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg
77. Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
78. It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.
Victor Hugo
79. Honest people don’t hide their deeds.
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Honesty proverbs
80. A half-truth is a whole lie.
Yiddish proverb
81. One lie ruins a thousand truths.
Ghanaian proverb
82. Sooner of later the truth comes to light.
Dutch proverb
83. One man tells a lie, dozens repeat it as truth.
Chinese proverb
We hope these honesty quotes for kids have inspired you to live truthfully. For more inspirational quotes, check out the following lists:
By Greg Johnson | Published 2/12/24
