Honesty is the best policy from "summary" of An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth by M. K. Gandhi
My own experience has been that the best policy is honesty and straightforwardness. The moment there is the slightest deviation from truth, the next step is to resort to falsehood, and once one has told a lie and is discovered, there is no end to the deception that has to be resorted to in order to screen the first lie. It is a common observation that if one has to lie, one will have to add a dozen more to bolster up the one. I have noticed that this process goes on and on till at last, the whole structure of falsehood comes tumbling down. The man, who had, in the beginning, been simple, becomes complex, and is finally entrapped in the toils of his own making. The more I study the question, the more I realize that falsehood, sharp practice, deception, and so forth are, after all, limited. One can deal with them at a given moment and no more. The best policy is to be honest, truthful, and straightforward. I am referring more to business transactions than to ordinary social intercourse. In social and domestic life, one can, of course, afford to be generous and considerate, even if one has to suffer a disadvantage. In business, however, there can be no question of generosity or consideration. One must be truthful. It is a common experience that such honesty does not long remain unreciprocated. The person to whom one tells the truth feels bound to repay it. A man who is straightforward and honest does not only cultivate the quality of fearlessness, but also inculcates a certain amount of self-respect. In my opinion, the man who conceals the truth, who has no courage to speak the truth, who is afraid of others, proves that he has no confidence in himself and no respect for others. On the other hand, the man who is afraid of nobody, who fears no one, who is truthful and straightforward, has in him the strength of a lion. He may be a lamb outwardly, but in reality, he has the heart of a lion.
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