Trust is the cornerstone of all meaningful relationships and ventures—be it personal or professional. A reliable foundation can make a relationship flourish, whereas a lack of trust can erode connections over time. The following article is a collection of carefully curated quotes on trust that inspire, empower, and resonate with anyone seeking to understand or build trust in various aspects of life. These quotes are categorized into ten themes, each capturing different nuances of trust and its inherent value.
Quotes on Trust in Relationships
"Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships." – Stephen R. Covey
"In a relationship, trust is more important than love. It will enhance your love." – Unknown
"Without communication, there is no relationship. Without respect, there is no love. Without trust, there is no reason to continue." – Unknown
"Trust is built with consistency." – Lincoln Chafee
"A healthy relationship will never require you to sacrifice your friends, your dreams, or your dignity." – Unknown
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." – George MacDonald
"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." – William Shakespeare
"Trust is like blood pressure. It's silent, vital to good health, and if abused it can be deadly." – Frank Sonnenberg
"Trust starts with truth and ends with truth." – Santosh Kalwar
"Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair." – Unknown
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." – Ernest Hemingway
"Trust is earned when actions meet words." – Chris Butler
Famous Quotes on Trust
"Trust yourself, you will start to trust others." – Santosh Kalwar
"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can’t believe you." – Friedrich Nietzsche
"Trust is hard to come by. That’s why my circle is small and tight. I'm kind of funny about making new friends." – Eminem
"For every good reason to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth." – Bo Bennett
"Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved." – William P. Young
"Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time." – Arthur Ashe
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." – Albert Einstein
"Keep your promises and be consistent. Be the kind of person others can trust." – Roy T. Bennett
"Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks." – Isaac Watts
"The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool." – Stephen King
"Trust but verify." – Ronald Reagan
"The best proof of love is trust." – Joyce Brothers
Quotes about Trust Issues
"Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it's broken, but you can still see the crack in that reflection." – Lady Gaga
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." – Mark Twain
"Breaking someone’s trust is like crumpling up a perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it over, but it’s never going to be the same again." – Unknown
"Trust is the easiest thing in the world to lose, and the hardest thing in the world to get back." – R. M. Williams
"It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it." – Jodi Picoult
"Trust is like an eraser, it gets smaller and smaller after every mistake." – Unknown
"Trust dies but mistrust blossoms." – Sophocles
"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart." – Erma Bombeck
"A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts." – Harold Macmillan
"Trust is earned when there are no witnesses." – Unknown
"Better to trust the man who is frequently in error than the one who is never in doubt." – Eric Sevareid
"One who is fed on promises eats from an empty hand." – Unknown
Inspirational Quotes about Trust
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." – Benjamin Spock
"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity." – Kahlil Gibran
"Acting is a matter of giving away secrets." – Ellen Barkin
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." – Ernest Hemingway
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Trust enables you to put your deepest feelings and fears in the palm of your partner's hand, knowing they will be handled with care." – Carl S. Avery
"We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy." – Walter Anderson
"Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level." – Joyce Brothers
"Trust is built when someone is vulnerable and not taken advantage of." – Bob Vanourek
"To earn trust, one must be vulnerable. It is the only path to real intimacy." – Ellen Miley Perry
"Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust." – Albert Einstein
"All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quotes about Trust in Business
"Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work." – Warren Bennis
"A trusted advisor is an invaluable asset to any organization." – Unknown
"Trust is built with consistency." – Lincoln Chafee
"Knowing what I cannot do is more important than knowing what I can do." – Lucille Ball
"Building trust means looking for ways to ensure that your people can see, hear, and feel that you are trustworthy." – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
"Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience." – Stephen R. Covey
"Trust is a valuable but vulnerable asset in today’s organizations, for it builds cooperation, teamwork, and collaboration." – David Maister
"It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday." – John Guare
"Good leaders trust their team to execute without micromanagement." – Unknown
"In business, the ultimate test of trust is when someone is confident enough that you will have their back." – Patrick Lencioni
"Trust isn’t just a function of a relationship; it is the keystone holding together all the relationships." – Daniel Goleman
"The key is to trust the process and listen to your intuition, even when you are not totally sure what you are doing." – Unknown
Quotes on Trust in Friends
"A friend is someone you can trust with all your secrets." – Unknown
"One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives." – Euripides
"Friends trust in each other's hopes and dreams." – Unknown
"Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer." – Ed Cunningham
"Friendship makes us feel fully understood." – Unknown
"The best mirror is an old friend." – George Herbert
"True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." – George Washington
"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." – Walter Winchell
"Be slow to fall into friendship, but when thou art in, continue firm and constant." – Socrates
"Those who trust us, educate us." – George Eliot
"A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities." – William Arthur Ward
"In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends." – John Churton Collins
Quotes on Trust and Honesty
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." – Thomas Jefferson
"Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving." – James E. Faust
"Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure." – James Altucher
"It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living." – Eckhart Tolle
"The outer condition of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs." – James Allen
"No legacy is so rich as honesty." – William Shakespeare
"Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist." – Mary Kay Ash
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." – Socrates
"Speak with honesty, think with sincerity, and act with integrity." – Anonymous
"A half-truth is a whole lie." – Yiddish Proverb
"Honesty saves everyone's time." – Unknown
"Respect is earned. Honesty is appreciated. Trust is gained. Loyalty is returned." – Unknown
Quotes about Losing Trust
"Trust is like a vase, once it’s broken, though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same again." – Walter Anderson
"Breaking trust is easy, mending trust is hard." – Unknown
"Trust lost can never be regained." – Petronius
"Once trust is broken, some attitudes will have to be resolved, some wounds will have to be healed, some hearts will have to learn to trust again." – Unknown
"For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first." – Suzanne Collins
"Trust is hard to come by but very easy to lose." – Unknown
"Trust cannot be broken only in some truths and not others." – Julius Caesar
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." – George MacDonald
"Trust may be compromised by bad choices, but trustworthiness is demonstrated in good character." – Lolly Daskal
"Trust is the foundation of any relationship. When it is broken, so is the relationship." – Unknown
"When trust is broken, words will only come in the way of understanding." – Unknown
"What we seek when we trust people is not that they will be good, but at least that they will be predictable." – Juliana Hatfield
Quotes on Trust and Forgiveness
"Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart." – Corrie Ten Boom
"To err is human; to forgive, divine." – Alexander Pope
"When you forgive, you don't change the past, you change the future." – Bernard Meltzer
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." – Mahatma Gandhi
"Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me." – Unknown
"It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody." – Maya Angelou
"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." – Paul Boese
"The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." – Marianne Williamson
"The act of forgiveness takes place in our own mind. It really has nothing to do with the other person." – Louise Hay
"True forgiveness is when you can say, 'Thank you for that experience.'" – Oprah Winfrey
"Forgiveness is a sign that the person who has wronged you means more to you than the wrong they have made." – Anonymous
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." – Lewis B. Smedes
Heartfelt Quotes about Trust
"Trust connects and binds people together, makes a room for compassion and love." – Unknown
"True love rests on trust and faith." – Khalil Gibran
"Trust gives you permission to make risky deals and decisions." – Unknown
"The best proof of love is trust." – Joyce Brothers
"If you’re not comfortable sharing your secrets with someone, that means you don’t trust them." – Unknown
"Love cannot live where there is no trust." – Edith Hamilton
"Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people." – Stephen R. Covey
"Trust is the choice to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions." – Charles Feltman
"Trust has to be continuously earned every day." – Unknown
"The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool." – Stephen King
"Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved." – William P. Young
"Trust is an emotion you can feel in your heart, but it must be nurtured with actions and decisions." – Unknown
Final words
Trust is a complex yet essential fabric interwoven into every aspect of our lives. As seen through these curated quotes, trust is foundational in relationships, friendships, business ventures, and self-belief. It is a virtue that requires time, vulnerability, and honesty to cultivate. Breaks in trust can be challenging to reconcile, yet with forgiveness and effort, breached trust can mend and rebuild strong ties. These quotes serve as a reminder of the power trust holds—it can build, heal, and transform. Whether seeking to strengthen or understand trust, the wisdom shared here aims to enlighten and inspire. With trust, not only can we form deeper connections with others, but we can also live with courage and integrity.
