Honesty is the best policy in international relations, interpersonal relations, labor, business, education, family and crime control because truth is the only thing that works and the only foundation on which lasting relations can build. (Ramsey Clark)
Respect in its highest form
This is the most important chapter of the book. You can do many of the things I suggest here – have a positive attitude, form good habits, laugh, be thankful, set goals, motivate yourself, work hard, be self-disciplined, use time wisely, etc. – but you’ll never be truly successful unless everything you do is under girded with honesty and integrity. You’ll never know peace of mind and you’ll never enjoy feelings of self-worth unless truthfulness is deeply imbedded in your character. If you don’t learn anything else from reading this book, it’s my most sincere wish and most fervent prayer that you understand this great truth: honesty always was, is now, and always will be, the best policy.
I don’t mean to sound like one of the "fire and brimstone" preachers of the Puritan era, threatening you with the burning fires of hell if you tell a lie. But I do want to try to convince you, with all the passion I have, that honesty is the most essential ingredient of real success. In the previous chapter I said that respect was the foundation upon which good people build their lives. The cornerstone, the first and most indispensable piece of that foundation, is honesty. It’s respect in its highest form.
Why am I so impassioned about honesty? Because it took me too long to realize that honesty was the missing piece in my own search for success and personal fulfillment. I had most of the other pieces, but not the one on which they were all dependent. I wasn’t a compulsive liar, an embezzler or a thief; I just wasn’t honest in all things. Like many others, I had the attitude that "everybody’s doing it." So I did it, too. Somehow, being a little bit dishonest was OK. But also like others, I was kidding myself. I made the slow and painful discovery that there’s no such thing as being a little bit dishonest. It was then that I made a conscious decision to be as honorable as I could in all things. It was a life-changing choice, one I wish I would have made much earlier. But at least I had several more years in which to experience the richness of an honest life. Some people never do. That’s why if I could pass on only one thing to my own sons and other young people, it would be this: If you genuinely want to succeed in life, honesty isn’t just the best policy; it’s the only policy.
The meaning of integrity
The key to being or becoming an honest person lies in understanding the meaning of integrity and its relationship to honesty. The two words are often interchangeably, but integrity is a broader term. In regard to human nature, it means being complete. It comes from the word integral, which means whole or undivided. It’s defined in Webster’s as "essential to completeness." To have integrity is to be a complete person – honest and with consistently high moral standards. To live without integrity is to be an incomplete human being. Dishonesty retards both our personal and social development. It causes us to fall short of realizing our full potential for lives with inner peace, feelings of self-worth, and healthy relationships.
Schweitzer wrote that we can’t have "reverence for life" unless we develop a personal code of ethics which includes honesty and truthfulness in all our dealings with other people. He says only after we develop this kind of integrity can we "feel at home in this world" and be truly effective in it. Honesty, in Schweitzer’s view, is the most basic element in the personalities of people who have a genuine respect for life.