Honesty is the Best Policy

This short essay was prepared for declamation contest for my daughter in class III

“The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard” said Henry David Thoreau

Revered Sisters, respected teachers and judges, today I am going to present my views on the proverb “honesty is the Best policy”.  Many Great thinkers endorsed this quote. As I understand, honesty means being truthful and policy here means “ a rule to guide your decisions”. A question cropped up in my mind

·         Is honesty the best policy at all?

·         When the honesty is best policy or is honesty always the best policy?

I listened to one of the fairy tale stories about honesty. A woodcutter was rewarded by  gold and  silver axe along with his own  iron axe. The reward was given  by a fairy for his honest approach”. 

 Or does this happen only in stories?

NO!!!  I remember a recently published incident. A poor auto driver returned a bag containing 10 lakh rupees to its owner.  The bag was left in his auto by the owner accidently.

 By being truthful we get mental strength and confidence to face any situation. Also there is no conflict in our minds and we remain peaceful.              A dishonest person has to be continually on his guard.  If we speak one lie, we have to speak many lies.   This causes stress in our minds.

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar said Abraham Lincoln

Honesty is simple. You have only one fact to remember.

Now a question arises “is being truthful means revealing all"? Is there a need to call a fat boy!!!! Fat ?  doesn’t by  keeping silent, we can prevent a situation turning ugly?

 Though Honesty is best policy, it is also true that   “Silence is Golden.”   We should also not hurt anybody intentionally by telling truth.

“A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent” -----said William Blake

I end up with this Mahatma Gandhi’s quote  “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest”. Which supports the proverb  “honesty is the best policy”

Little notes about great persons ( source Wikipedia)

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) (properly pronounced Thaw-roe)[1] was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln  (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis — the American Civil War — preserving the Union while ending slavery and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives, but failed in two attempts at a seat in the United States Senate. He was an affectionate, though often absent, husband and father of four children.

William Blake

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[1] His visual artistry has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".[2] Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham[3] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God",[4] or "Human existence itself".[5]

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent

"Auguries of Innocence," Poems from the Pickering Manuscript