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175 Best Honesty Quotes for Kids

Are you looking for inspiring honesty quotes for kids? Then you are in the right place!

Here are 175 Honesty Sayings for Children including matching books, activities, and free printable honesty lunch notes.

Let’s have a look!

honesty quotes for kids

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How to Teach Children to Be Honest?

Being honest brings you a long way in life.

But as with every other characteristic in life, children have to learn first what being honest means and why it is so important, to be honest with yourself and others.

So let’s define first what being honest means. By definition, honesty means telling the truth.

But why is honesty important? That is actually a really simple explanation. People who are honest are easier to trust. By being honest you build a good foundation for any relationship!

So now is the question how do we teach our children to be honest if they figure out quickly that being truthful can get them in trouble?

Here are some of my tips:

  1. Lead by example by being an role model
  2. Reward honesty
  3. Set of consequences for lying
  4. Correct mistakes together
  5. Keep promises

Honesty Books for Kids

After our tips about honesty, you might like to read a matching book to your children.

Here are some great honesty book recommendations for you and your kids:

A Kid’s Book about Telling the Truth and Overcoming Lying.

This classic Berenstain Bears story is a perfect way to teach children about the importance of honesty!

A Christian children’s rhyming book empowering kids to tell the truth to overcome lying in any circumstance by teaching … of God’s Word.

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175 Best Honesty Quotes for Kids

Being honest is freeing and makes you happy.

To inspire you to teach honesty to your children and students I collected some fun honesty quotes for you.

Our list of quotes about honesty includes honesty sayings for kids, short honesty quotes, be honest phrases, funny being honest quotes, honest quotes for students, honesty messages, being truthful quotes for kids, and fun honesty captions and puns.

Let’s have a look and get inspired!

Honesty Sayings for Kids

First are our kids sayings about honesty:

  • “Honesty is the best policy.”
  • “Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.” – Khaled Hosseini
  • “It takes strength and courage to admit the truth.”  ― Rick Riordan
  • “If you aren’t honest with people, they will never, ever trust you.”
  • “Love is honesty. Love is a mutual respect for one another.” – Simone Elkeles
  • “If you tell the truth, you don’t need a long memory.” – Jesse Ventura
  • “Honesty is a wonderful quality.”
  • “Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.” – Vernon Howard
  • “Honesty prospers in every condition of life.” – Friedrich Schiller
  • “Honesty is often very hard. The truth is often painful. But the freedom it can bring is worth the trying.” – Fred Rogers
about honesty quotes for kids

“Being honest gets easier each time.”

Unknown
truth and honesty quotes for kids

Top 10 Honesty Quotes for Kids

Followed by our top 10 honesty quotes for kids:

  • “If you lie, you’ll feel bad, and you’ll get caught.”
  • “The elegance of honesty needs no adornment.” – Mary Browne
  • “Honesty doesn’t always pay, but dishonesty always costs.” – Michael Josephson
  • “Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.” – J.C. Watts
  • “Honesty is very important.”
  • “When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth.” – Khaled Hosseini
  • “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson  
  • “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
  • “Honesty has a power that very few people can handle.” – Steven Aitchison
  • “Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.” – Henry David Thoreau
honesty quotations for kids

“When you walk a life of honesty, you live a life of truth.”

Therese Benedict

Quotes on Truth and Honesty

Next are our truth quotes for kids:

  • “Honesty is indeed the best policy.”
  • “Honesty is the best policy. If I lose my honor, I lose myself.” – William Shakespeare
  • “Every lie is two lies, the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it.” – Robert Brault 
  • “Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.” ― Lemuel K. Washburn
  • “A clear conscience is far more valuable than money.” – Proverb Wealth
  • “Honesty will never break you.” – Kate Hudson
  • “To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.” – Confucius
  • “Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.” – Mary Kay Ash
  • “Don’t ever regret being honest. Period.” – Taylor Swift
  • “If you are honest with yourself, your life will be so much more pleasant.” – Jessica Zafra
be honest sayings for kids

“Being honest comes from the hear.”

Unknown
honesty sayings for kids

Did you enjoy our honest wishes for kids?
You might like to reward your children for being honest. Check out our Kids Gift Guide for some ideas:

Kindness and Honesty Quotes

Kindness and being truthful go hand in hand. Here are our kindness and honesty quotes for you:

  • “When you know better, you do better…” – Beth Elkassih”
  • “Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.” – Mother Teresa
  • “Living with integrity means: Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension.” – Barbara De Angelis
  • “Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.” ― Andrew Carnegie
  • “Honesty is perhaps just as important a factor in one’s communication skills as trust.” – Ross Elkins
  • “There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.” – Charles Dickens
  • “Always remember, everyone is hungry for praise and starving for honest appreciation!” – David Brandt Berg
  • “The real source of inner joy is to remain truthful and honest.” – Dalai Lama
  • “Healthy relationships of all kinds are usually composed of honesty, trust, and respect.” – Ace McCloud
  • “The truth cuts like the sharpest knife I’ve ever known.” – Tomi Adeyemi

See our full list of inspiring Kindness Quotes here.

Kindness Quotes for Kids

“Always be a little kinder than necessary.”

James M. Barrie
Kindness Quotes for Students
integrity and honest quotes for kids

Quotes on Honesty and Integrity

To be honest you need some sort of integrity. Therefore here are our integrity quotes for kids:

  • “Tell the truth, and don’t lie.”
  • Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” 
    – Spencer Johnson 
  • “The first step is, to be honest, and then to be noble.” – Winston Churchill
  • “Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.” – Albert Einstein
  • “Honesty is incompatible with amassing a large fortune.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
  • “The high road is always respected. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.” – Scott Hamilton
  • “Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.” ― Thomas Otway
  • “Friendship is not threatened by honest criticism. It is strengthened.” – Charles Swindoll
  • “Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.” – Mahatma Gandhi
  • “Speak with honesty. Think with sincerity. Act with integrity.” – Unknown
Inspiring Honesty Quotes for Kids

“It helps people to become honest when they are treated as honest.”

Elijah Mcleon
Inspirational Honesty Quotes for Kids

Inspirational Honesty Quotes for Kids

Sometimes telling the truth needs to be inspired. That’s why I collected some inspiring honesty quotes for you:

  • “I think people respect honesty rather than hiding it.” – Jack Whitehall
  • “Being honest is a real treasure.”
  • “Be honest in your life, it creates positive energy, stopping all unfairness through life.” ― Fathima Bibi Joosab
  • “The greatest truth is honesty, and the greatest falsehood is dishonesty.” — Abu Bakr
  • “You can’t lie to your soul.” – Irvine Welsh
  • Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving.” 
    ― James E Faust
  • “Lying will make you feel guilty.”
  • “Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.” – James Altucher
  • “Relationships feed on credibility, honesty, and consistency.” – Scott Borchetta
  • “Healthy relationships of all kinds are usually composed of honesty, trust, and respect.” ― Ace McCloud
kids honesty quotes

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Groucho Marx
quotes about honesty for kids

Motivational Honesty Quotes for Kids

In case you run out of motivation to teach your kids to be honest. Here are our motivational honesty quotes for you:

  • “There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.” – Frank Ocean
  • “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” – William Shakespeare
  • “The establishment of any relationship, both individual and expert, is honesty.” – Alexander Mejia
  • “All parents want their child to be honest but often forget to place emphasis on being trustworthy even though this is also a form of honesty.” – James R. Morrison
  • “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
  • “The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love, and loyalty.” – Zig Ziglar
  • “When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite, and commitment, the input reflects the output.” ― A. R. Rahman
  • “Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.” – John Lennon
  • “To live a life of honesty and integrity is a responsibility of every decent person.” – Noam Chomsky
  • “One honest relationship can be more productive than fistfuls of business cards.” – Susan Cain
Motivational Honesty Quotes for Kids

“Being honest matters.”

Unknown
Motivational Honesty Sayings for Kids

Truth Quotes for Kids

Check out our truthful quotes for kids:

  • “Always tell the truth.”
  • “Pretty much all the honest truth-telling in the world is done by children.” Oliver Wendell
  • “To express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself; that, my friend, is very hard to do.” – Bruce Lee
  • “A half-truth is a whole lie.” – Yiddish Proverb
  • “Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don’t expect it from cheap people.” ― Warren Buffett
  • “Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.” ― Sarah Dessen
  • “We are franker towards others than towards ourselves.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • “Honesty, truth and decency all link together- by loving all of these, we can improve our families, communities and our society.” – Estella Eliot
  • “If you aren’t honest with people, they will never, ever trust you.”
  • “The real things haven’t changed. It is still best, to be honest and truthful.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Truth Quotes for Kids

“Honesty is always appreciated.”

Unknown
kids Truth Quotes

Integrity Quotes for Kids

Next are our integrity sayings for kids:

  • “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
  • “Integrity is telling myself the truth, and honesty is telling the truth to other people.” – Spensor Johnson
  • “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” – Alan Simpson
  • “An honest answer is the sign of true friendship.” –  E.W. Howe
  • “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” – Rosa Parks
  • “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” – Unknown
  • “Hiding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn’t make you nice, it just makes you a liar.” – Jenny O’Connell
  • “Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.” – Kent M. Keith
  • “I think honesty is the most heroic quality one can aspire to.” – Daniel Radcliffe
  • “Integrity: A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, what’s in a name? I answer, just about everything you do.” – Morris Mandel
Integrity Quotes for Kids

“Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.”

C.s. Lewis
kids Integrity Quotes

Quotes on Honesty

What do you think about these quotes about honesty for kids?

  • “Honesty is the most powerful word.”
  • “Be silly, be honest, be kind.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” – Mark Twain
  • “Sometimes it is more difficult to be honest with yourself than to try to please other people by saying what they want to hear.” – Gerard Strong
  • “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” ― Virginia Woolf
  • “When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.” – Abraham Lincoln
  • “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” – Unknown
  • “It’s difficult, to be honest with others when you continue lying to yourself.” ― Carlos Wallace
  • “To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.” – John Ruskin
  • “You cannot con an honest man.” ― Ally Carter
Quotes on Honesty for kids

“Don’t live in fear, be honest.”

Unknown
quotes with honesty for kids

Be Honest Quotes for Kids

Being honest is always the best policy. Encourage your children to be honest with our honest quotes for kids:

  • “Honest hearts produce honest actions.” ― Brigham Young
  • “It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” ― Noël Coward
  • “Honesty and loyalty are key.” – Taylor Lautner
  • “We have no relationship without honesty.” ― Emily Giffin
  • “You learn how to do good work by being honest with yourself.” ― Rodney Crowell
  • “Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. Right is right even if no one is doing it.” – Unknown
  • “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest” – Gandhi
  • “Be truthful in what you say and do.” – Unknown
  • “You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.” ― Anne Lamott
  • “The time is always right to do what is right.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Be Honest Quotes for Kids

“Be strong, be brave, be honest.”

Unknown
Be Honest Sayings for Kids

Sayings About Honesty

If these weren’t enough quotes on honesty yet, check out our sayings on honesty next:

  • “Can you honestly love a dishonest thing?” – John Steinbeck
  • “It is better to suffer for truth than to prosper by falsehood.” – Danish
  • “Speak with honesty think with sincerity act with integrity.” – Unknown
  • “Honesty is only an illusion to those who seek their own selfish needs.” – Theodore Higgingsworth
  • “Do what you say you will do.” – Unknown
  • “Honesty leads to peace.” ― Veronica Roth
  • “There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.” “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
  • “The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.” – William Safire
  • “Being honest in your heart feels better than ice cream.” – Unknown
  • “Don’t just teach kids how to count, teach them what counts most.” – Unknown
Sayings About Honesty

“Everyone can be honest.”

Unknown
honesty phrases for kids

Short Honesty Quotes for Kids

Short but sweet are our short honesty sayings:

  • “Don’t lie.”
  • “You can’t lie to your soul.” – Irvine Welsh
  • “Honesty is something you can’t wear out.” – Waylon Jennings
  • “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” ― Sigmund Freud
  • “Honesty pays, but it doesn’t seem to pay enough to suit some people.”  – Frank McKinney
  • “Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.” – Mark Twain
  • “The truth needs so little rehearsal.” – Barbara Kingsolver
  • “Honesty will never break you.” – Kate Hudson
  • “You should not honor men more than truth.” – Plato
  • “The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.” – John Lyly
Short Honesty Quotes for Kids

“Loyalty and honesty, those are important.”

Willian
honesty quotes short

Funny Honesty Quotes

These honesty quotes are pretty fun:

  • “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain
  • “Some people are so smart with their honesty, they portray it in such a funny way that nobody gets hurt.” – Unknown
  • “The people are two-faced here, you never know when he turns it over and drags you with him towards anything.” – Unknown
  • “People all over the nation are starved for honesty and common sense.” – Ben Carson
  • “Stop celebrating your success with fake people, they don’t deserve it.” – Unknown
  • “Compliments win friends, honesty loses them.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
  • “It doesn’t worth it saying something honest in front of an idiot person who will never accept your truth.” – Unknown
  • “Let’s tell the truth to people. When people ask, ‘How are you?’ have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully.” – Maya Angelou
  • “To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.” ― Leo Tolstoy
  • “There is a different kind of beauty and attractiveness in honest people who are funny too at the same time.” – Unknown

“People waste money on food and clothes, I prefer to make memories with honest people.”

Unknown
Fun Honesty Quotes

Best Honesty Captions

Let’s not forget our fun honesty captions for kids:

  • “Honesty is sometimes really painful.”
  • “To be honest is often really hard.”
  • “Without courage, we can’t be honest. So, be courageous enough, to tell the truth.”
  • “The best thing in the personality of a person is honesty.”
  • “Life seems better when you are surrounded by honest people”
  • “Honesty never goes wasted; it is always worth trying.”
  • “What else do you need when you have been blessed with honest friends.”
  • “Always be truthful, talk less, kind, honest, and generous.”
  • “Honesty will take you to a higher place in life.”
  • “It is sometimes ok to lie when it makes someone smile.”
Funny Honesty Quotes

“Honest people invest in now, they don’t wait for perfect time.”

Unknown
fun honesty captions for kids

Fun Honesty Puns

Last but not least are our funny honesty puns.

  • “Time to be honest.”
  • “Never mix honesty and frankness with each other.”
  • “Difficult roads often lead to great places.”
  • “People like honest people nowadays.”
  • “Our honesty is often taken as weakness, but still don’t care, because we know who they are.”
  • “The worst day with the honest ones is still better than a good day with two-faced ones.”
  • “Honest life means staying calm, seeing things differently, and minding your own business.”
  • “Never share your weaknesses with anyone in life.”
  • “Honesty shows how well a person is raised by his parents.”
  • “You have to go through the darkness to get into the light.”
Quotes on Honesty and Integrity

“The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying to the longest way.”

Samuel Butler
Fun Honesty Puns for kids

All visual learners can check out our honesty quotes video here:

More Quotes

I also like to introduce you to the following quotes for kids:

Honesty Activities for Kids

After you are done with these honesty messages for kids, go check out these matching activities next:


This time I actually couldn’t find any greeting card about honesty. Therefore, I want to show you some plain greeting card options to use for our honesty quotes and sayings:

How to Download Your Free Printable Honesty Quotes PDF

Simply sign up here for our newsletter and you will receive the link to our free printable Honesty Lunch Notes.

Already a subscriber? Don’t worry, no need to subscribe twice. I just updated our free printable library.

You can find our best honesty notes printable there or check our latest newsletter for more information.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I m happy to help!

FAQ

What Does Honesty Mean for Kids?

Honesty for kids means telling the truth and being sincere in their words and actions.

It involves being straightforward and not hiding or distorting facts.

Teaching honesty to children goes beyond just telling them not to lie; it also involves helping them understand the importance of being truthful, even when it might be difficult.

What Is a Quote About Kids Telling the Truth?

Try the following sayings about kids telling the truth:

  • “In the honesty of a child’s words, we find the purest reflections of truth.” – Unknown
  • “A child’s truth is a beacon of sincerity that lights up the path to trust.” – Unknown
  • “The sincerity of a child’s honesty is a gift that reveals the beauty of their unfiltered hearts.” – Unknown
  • “In the world of little ones, truth is spoken in the language of innocence.” – Unknown
  • “Children, like truth-tellers, color the world with the bright hues of sincerity.” – Unknown
  • “A child’s truth is a treasure chest of authenticity, unlocking the doors to genuine connections.” – Unknown
  • “When kids speak the truth, they paint a canvas of integrity that leaves a lasting impression.” – Unknown

Pin Our Honesty Quotes for Kids

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Now I would like to hear from you!
Which saying about honesty did you choose? Did you find a better one?
Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.
I would love to hear from you!

maham

Thursday 16th of November 2023

honesty is something that makes your life better, but somtime it is painful