+Honesty looks people straight in the eye, tells the plain truth about its goods, stands on its merits, asks no favors, has nothing to conceal, fears no investigation.+--This bold, open, self-reliant quality of honesty is what makes it a manly thing, or a virtue. To do thorough work; to speak the plain truth; to do exactly as you would be done by; to put another man's interest on a level with your own; to take under no pretext or excuse a cent's worth more than you give in any trade you make, calls out all the strength and forbearance and self-control there is in a man, and that is why it ranks so high among the virtues.
+The honest man is the only man who can respect himself.+--He carries his head erect, and no man can put him down. Everything about him is sound and every act will bear examination. This sense of one's own genuineness and worth is honesty's chief reward.
+Every one-sided transaction dishonest.+--In fair exchange both parties are benefited. In unfair exchange one party profits by the other's loss. Any transaction in which either party fails to receive an equivalent for what he gives is a fraud; and the man who knowingly and willfully makes such a trade is a thief in disguise. For taking something which belongs to another, without giving him a return, and without his full, free, and intelligent consent, is stealing.
The temptation to take advantage of another's ignorance; to palm off a poor article for a good one; to get more than we give, is very great in all forms of business. Cheating is very common, and one is tempted to do a little cheating himself in order to keep even with the rest. The only way to resist it is to see clearly that cheating is lying and stealing put together; that it is an injury to our fellow-men and to society; that it is playing the part of a knave and a rascal instead of an honest and honorable man.
+The meanest and most contemptible kind of cheating is quackery.+--The quack is liar, thief, and murderer all in one. For in undertaking to do things for which he has no adequate training and skill, he pretends to be what he is not. He takes money for which he is unable to render a genuine equivalent. And by inducing people to trust their lives in his incompetent and unskilled hands he turns them aside from securing competent treatment, and so confirms disease and hastens death.