The proverb ‘Honesty is the best policy’ has a straightforward literal meaning, which encourages the populace to tell the turth and avoid crime.
Honesty is the best policy
What's the meaning of the phrase 'Honesty is the best policy'?
What's the origin of the phrase 'Honesty is the best policy'?
This proverb is first found in the writings of Sir Edwin Sandys, the English politician and colonial entrepreneur, who was prominent in the Virginia Company which founded the first English settlement in America, at Jamestown, Virginia. In Europae Speculum, 1599, Sandys wrote:
Our grosse conceipts, who think honestie the best policie.
See also: the List of Proverbs.
The history of “Honesty is the best policy” in printed materials
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