A Person should not be too honest; Straight Trees are cut first

Very true! This does hold good at least these days. One can not really survive being completely honest and innocent. As there is always someone waiting for an innocent to get fooled.

I don't understand why honesty has been associated with vulnerability in this discussion. Yes if your honest you will tell people of your weaknesses, but people can see your weaknesses anyway with sufficient time, it pays to be aware of your weaknesses and the influence of other people upon them in order to resist that weakness being used against you.

You also attract what you give, if you have a negative life perspective you attract people who understand and sympathise with that perspective, if your honest you attract people who understand and sympathise with honesty and wouldn't you rather surround yourself with people who believe in honesty and that you can trust? Yes you may also end up attracting some people who want to take advantage of your weaknesses but already through the process of sharing your weaknesses honestly you learn to accept and deal with them, and find a sense of belonging and normality within yourself that you would otherwise not have found, and therefore you are more resistant to people attempted manipulations of your weaknesses and can see these attempts more clearly.

I also don't understand why honesty is seen as a malicious thing. Being honest creates a great support system where people know where they belong and feel accepted for who they are inside, not who they pretend to be. By admitting your weaknesses you give other the permission to do the same, and you make them realise their weaknesses aren't as big a deal or aren't as rare as they may have thought. Additionally I believe there is nothing more malicious than devaluing another persons time, if you set up a dishonest situation where you allow someone to spend their time trying to achieve something that does not exist (for example you tell someone you love them when you don't) you are essentially saying that their time is worthless and unimportant, that their life is worthless and unimportant and that person is worthless and unimportant.

It is basic respect to be honest, it helps people understand one another and find a true sense of belonging, and it encourages others to be honest which establishes a situation around you where you only keep the people in your life who value you and your time.

Hi, I'm Scarlet from Bangladesh.

I think and support that people should be honest. You may get fame, money and happiness by lying (for now) but at the end of the day, you will certainly fall. But if you are honest and speak the truth, though you might not get all the things that you want/wished for at that particular time, but after a certain period of time, you will definitely get your reward and that's for sure. So, all I want to say is that by being honest you may not get what you want for the present time but in the long-run, you certainly will get what you want and you will then achieve your destination and become successful. ! :).

Hi, I am Shinjon from Bangladesh.

Yes it is true that straight trees are cut first but this doesn't mean that a person should not be honest! One of the golden rule of this world is that "In order to gain something, we have to give something up". Honesty is a virtue so in order to gain this virtue we have to give something up. That might be a few drops of tears or an opportunity. So, to gain such a virtue I am ready to give up a few drops of water. Are you ready?

Honesty is not the best policy to deal with in life. If you truly love something you will protect it, if protecting something you love especially a person means being dishonest then call me a liar. Love before honesty. Honesty is a balancing act, not too much to cause harm and not too little to become diabolical.

Hi I am Akshata, I wanna say, we should be honest towards our family, husband and wife relationship, and when you deal with society and customers and your suppliers and If your business man, or any doctor, police officers, political parties all should be honest but they don't. So ultimately we only have to face difficulties in our common life. Be honest and your business honestly.

I would stay honest rather than having lots of gold and silver but no sleep. I believe honesty and hard work takes more time to succeed in what so called Good life. But the real good life is how honestly you do things that gives total satisfaction not me or my family but to the contribution of this society. Being fair to others begins with our honesty. If everybody start to be dishonest, the world will be more corrupt and people would steal from others and live a immoral life. Hence the adage which you say "Person should not be too honest; Straight Trees are cut first" is not right.

I believe in honesty, but it does not work all the time. You can't be sincere and straight in all your relationships, for example you can't be too honest with your gf, if everyone is so, then relationships would no longer persists and sometimes being honest works much better. So its all depends on the person who is gonna receive your words. You should decide yourself to be mildly honest or greatly honest depending upon others.

I think as we progress meaning of honesty has also changed. Just speaking the truth does not mean that we are honest and it is not that we have to always speak truth to our parents, partners and friend. I think honesty is something which must come from inside. If we talk of our nation, we only talk of corruption and all but we in fact are not honest to ourself as we just don't want to take any initiative. So in my opinion honesty is something more than talking true and then only honesty is best policy.

Honesty is just being true to oneself and others. It's meaning cannot be changed. There is no doubt that being Honest makes oneself to put with lot of consequences in many ways. But that is where the strength as a Person lies. I still believe HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY. And fruit for being HONEST pays in time.