“What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.”


This quote was said by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a famous German playwright, and it means that if you speak the truth, you will have more respect from others than if you lie. I believe that honesty is pretty much the most important value that anyone can possess. You’ll probably get caught after the fact. Not being honest can hurt your appearance to people of importance, and your conscience would have the weight of the lie on it.

Not being honest can hurt your appearance to your superiors and other people of importance to you. When you’re applying for a job, the manager or your specific employer will probably see that you’ve been dishonest and they will think less of you. That will probably determine your chances of working at that particular place. If your parents knew that you lied, you would have to win their trust back, and let me tell you, it is no easy task. Your friends wouldn’t trust you either, and they would also be more people whose trust you would have to win. Overall, that would just make everything way too complicated, so give yourself a break and just tell the truth.

Another aspect of why honesty is the most important value is that you’ll probably get caught after the fact. When I lied to my parents, they almost immediately caught me and never let me forget it. They constantly said things that made me realize that they didn’t trust me as much as what they used to. I could tell that whenever I told them something they never really believed me. It didn’t matter what I was talking about either. I could have been talking about something that wasn’t even important and they would just dismiss it with a sarcastic remark that was dripping with the fact that they didn’t trust my input. That type of comment is the kind that hurts the most. It can dig deep inside you and tear at your emotions and make you feel like no one cares about anything that you’re talking about.

You will have to live with the fact that you lied. If you have even a half-decent soul inside of you, then you know that it will be tough. Your stomach will always have a knot in it, and sometimes it feels like the pain is enough to kill you. Believe me, I know from firsthand experience that that knot will be so tight that you can’t eat, you can’t sleep, and you can’t concentrate on anything that was once important to you. The only way to get rid of the knot is to admit that you lied and apologize to all of the people that the story may have affected. That is probably one of the most difficult things that a person will ever have to do. After you apologize, the knot is gone and it feels like a three hundred pound weight has been lifted from your shoulders. It’s as if you’re a new person.

Honesty is one of the values that make you do strange things. If you are asked a question that may mean very extreme consequences, then you must tell the truth. It doesn’t matter if you may get hurt for it; it’s the right thing to do. A girl in the Columbine shooting was asked if she believed in God by the shooters. She said yes and was shot. Even though her life was being put on the line, she stood up for what was right and spoke the truth. Honesty teaches you that the right thing is the only thing that matters at all.

Within my essay, you have seen why honesty is one of the most important values that anyone can ever have. The most important reason that honesty is the best value is that when you lie, you have that feeling inside and it never really goes away. It feels like all your breath has been sucked out of you and replaced with heavy rocks or something that makes you feel like you’re constantly being pulled down to the floor by your insides. When you tell the truth and speak from the heart, it makes all of the heaviness go away and you feel like a million dollars. Why would anyone ever choose to have the sinking feeling instead of the good feeling and knowing that you did the right thing? I don’t know and it really doesn’t make sense to me.