What does it mean? ...when the appearance of it is worth six of it."?

Question

"There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it." - -- quote of Mark Twain

Answer 1

Mark Twain was a shrewd, even cynical observer of human nature. For a distillation of this side of Mark Twain, see the short sentences at the head of each chapter of "Pudd'nhead Wilson."
Now for honesty as the best policy, which is a little different from honesty as the best principle, for a policy looks for a reward or return, and a principle does not necessarily do so. But that is a separate discussion.
What Twain is saying is that the "appearance" of honesty, that is, giving people the impression that one is honest, as a dishonest but persuasive salesman does, sometimes ("there are times," Twain writes) takes one as far as or even farther than "six of it," that is, six times the real thing (honesty) does. Twain implies that we need to be aware that there are plenty of successful people in the world who get away with creating the appearance of honesty, whereas the really honest suffer for their principles. This is not an attempt on the part of Twain to urge us to be false salesmen (dispensers of snake oil) but rather seeks to educate us to to the fact that there are many pretenders to honesty about who impose on people. Early in life Twain went to the West as a prospector, where he encounterd plenty of dubious types, who may well have succeeded in creating the impression that they were honest and thus deceived others. We need to see through the "superstition". See Mark Twain's "Roughing it," which is an account of his years in the West.

Answer 2

it simiilar to "dont judge a bok by its cover" the value of this object doesnt match up to the appearance of it....