honesty is the best policy
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.96 in modern English
40
Scrabble Score
22
Letters
4
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
proverb
Honesty is preferable as a course of action because it tends to work out best in the end.
Example Sentences
- "All theſe things conſidered, it hath made me to mitigate my former imagination, and to deem it not unpoſſible, that this over-politick and too wiſe Order may reach a note higher than our groſs conceits, who think honeſty the beſt policy, and truth the onely durable armor of proof; […]"
- "Honesty is the best policy; but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man. He only is an honest man who does that which is right because it is right, and not from motives of policy; and then, he is rewarded by finding afterwards that the honest course he has pursued was in reality the most politic."
Etymology
Attested since the early 1600s. Policy had the meaning of ‘shrewdness, cunning’ and ‘trick, stratagem’ at the time, so that the saying was originally an oxymoron in the same vein as attack is the best form of defence.