Parker Palmer Quotes

Why lie? I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say the opposite of what I think, like some others do.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.

Never separate the life you live from the words you speak.

I would despise myself if I thought that I was procuring your votes by concealing my opinions, and by avowing one set of principles in one part of the state and a different set in another.

My soldier weapon is the weapon of truth.

There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood that I am surprised they can be used by anyone in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love.

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous.

Truth has always had many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to permeate his whole being, accept all its consequences, and not have an emergency hiding place for himself and a Judas kiss for the consequence.

Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

It is only in love and murder that we still remain sincere.

True liars never love. True lovers never lie.

The world is looking, not for Christians who are perfect, but for Christians who are honest and who are willing to be honest with some of our contradictions and hypocrisy.

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.

With other people, Hilly hands out lies like the Presbyterians hand out guilt, but it's our own silent agreement, this strict honesty, perhaps the one thing that has kept us friends

me: you know what sucks about love? o.w.g.: what? me: that it's so tied to the truth. I know it sucks, but in a way, it's good....Love and truth being tied together, I mean. They make each other possible, you know?

As it has been said: Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love.

Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths

I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything I do not think.

I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'" Excuse me, gentleman, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you.

Personally, I didn't think there was anything wrong with sadness. Just the opposite – hypocrisy made people happy and truth made them sad.

The line of lovelessness is not drawn between speaking and doing, but between speaking and doing in the truth, and speaking and doing in emptiness. Truth turns word-love into deed-love.

I would rather speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and lying to a million. Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it! Try what it is to speak with God behind you, to speak so as to be only the arrow in the bow which the Almighty draws.

It is very difficult to tell the truth.

Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.