"Men in all ways are better than they seem. They like flattery for the moment, but they know the truth about themselves. It is a foolish cowardice, which keeps us from trusting them, and speaking to them raw and honest truth. 

They resent your honesty for an instant, but they will thank you for it always. 

What is it we heartily wish of each other? Is it to be pleased and flattered? No, but to be convicted and exposed, to be shamed out of our nonsense of all kinds, and made men of, instead of ghosts and phantoms. We are weary of gliding ghostlike through the world, which is itself so slight and unreal." Emerson.