The Meaning of Honor…

We recall a comment accredited to Thomas Carlyle: “Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.” With this in mind we turn to the meaning of honor, without which there isn’t much that is of worth in the world. We are not speaking of titles given, or positions held, or of honors conferred, but of the honor that is inseparably a part of a person inside himself.

Honor, honorable, honesty: these are associated with some other solid and wonderful words: trust, integrity, truth; courage, character, conscience; dignity, respect, and respectability; keeping credit, paying debts when due; purity, chastity, virtue; sincerity, decency, faithfulness; freedom from fraud, freedom from guile, freedom from duplicity and deception. These solid words are all associated with honor, honorable, honesty. And unless, as Carlyle said, they are converted into conduct, a man is not safe in his person or in his property, in anything he buys or sells, in any contract or commitment, or in any trust or treaty.

Honor is more than mere legality; more than the letter of the law; more than position, than reputation, than some kinds of success or public acceptance. It is not a matter of what is known or not known, what one can get away with, or what is popular or profitable or politic. It is freedom from deceit, from evil thinking, from evil intent; freedom from fraud. It is what makes it possible for a person to rely on what he reads or sees or hears, to rely on a label. It is what makes a woman or a girl or an innocent child safe. It is not promises, but performance.

It is simply a matter of whether something is or isn’t so. It is character and “conviction,” as Carlyle said, “converted into conduct”⎯without which there is little of worth in the world.