A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

Many people aren’t rich because they’re liars.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

Whether I’m running on the beach without my shirt or whether I’m going out with my kids or going to church or going out to dinner – I don’t choose to insulate myself in engaging in real life. Hence, the public kind of almost knows me as much through my real life that they see through the rag mags.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the ‚light‘ and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

I just don’t feel like I have to explain myself.

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.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

What is past is prologue.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‚Too much of a good thing can be wonderful‘.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.

No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Lettin‘ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‚n puttin‘ it back in.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.