Trust seems familiar, simple, and we believe we understand the idea of trust intuitively even if a familiar, simple definition of “trust” remains elusive to our cognition. “Trust” is, in fact, fluid, changing over time, context, circumstance, culture, and discipline, and there has never been, nor will there ever be, a universally accepted definition of trust.

In ‘An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust’, however, Roger C. Mayer did present a definition of trust that has since become arguably the most referenced approach in modern history. According to Mayer, “Trust is the willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party”. Worth noting is that the trust model suggested by Mayer suggests three factors of perceived trustworthiness; these are Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity.

Now understanding what is meant by “trust”, let’s consider the words of history’s great thinkers on the topic!

The Big List Of Quotes On Trust

The Big List Of Quotes On Trust is organized by the thinker’s year of birth.

1. Cicero – born 106 BCE

“Promises are… sometimes not to be kept; and trusts are not always to be restored… to keep a promise, to abide by an agreement, to restore a trust may, with a change of expediency, cease to be morally right.”

2. Niccolò Machiavelli – born 1469

“… a leader must think carefully before believing and responding to certain allegations and not get frightened over nothing. He should go about things coolly, cautiously and humanely: if he’s too trusting, he’ll get careless, and if he trusts no one he’ll make himself unbearable.”
“Rulers, and especially those new to power, have found that men they initially doubted prove more loyal and useful than those they trusted.”

3. Jean Bodin – born 1530

“…a group of families bound together by mutual trust forms a corporate association or community… mutual trust is the foundation of any society, and much more necessary to men than justice.”

4. Thomas Hobbes – born 1588

“To believe, to trust, to rely on another, is to honour him…”

5. René Descartes – born 1596

“… it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”

6. John Locke – born 1632

“The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it.”
“The legislature acts against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavor to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, our fortunes of the people.”
“… concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or to openly preengages the electors… who have promised before-hand what to vote, and what to enact.”
“What power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it contrary to the trust went along with it in its first institution, is easy to determine; and one cannot but see, that he, who has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted.”
“The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a power to discard him, when he fails in his trust?”

7. Adam Smith – born 1723

“The wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust which must be reposed in the workmen… When a person employs only his own stock in trade, there is no trust, and the credit which he may get from other people depend, not upon the nature of his trade, but upon their opinion of his fortune, probity, and prudence. The different rates of profit, therefore, in the different branches of trade, cannot arise from the different degrees of trust reposed in the traders.”

8. Bertrand de Jouvenel – born 1903

“Clearly it is in the personal interest of each individual to be able to trust others, and to trust them in two different ways. First, he needs to be able to count on the general complaisance of others, and that presupposes a social climate of friendship; next, he must know with reasonable certainty how others will conduct themselves towards him. This personal interest, which is particular for each and the same for all, constitutes a real common interest…”
“Trustfulness within the group is not only a moral good in itself; it is also the condition of the various advantages which the members can confer on each other. And the beneficence of this trustfulness is shown in nothing more than in the fact that it makes possible the birth of new relationships…”
“Social friendship and mutual trustfulness can be looked on as the essential framework, or the network of roads, which each member of society uses for his own ends, and tends to spoil by the use he makes of it.”
“The wider and more developed a society is, the less can the climate of trustfulness be the fruit of a spirit of community; the widening of the circle and the growing diversity of personalities tend to destroy that spirit.”

9. Robert Putnam – born 1941

“Trustworthiness lubricates social life.”
“Dense social ties facilitate gossip and other valuable ways of cultivating reputation – an essential foundation for trust in a complex society.”
“Generalized reciprocity is a community asset, but generalized gullibility is not. Trustworthiness, not simply trust, is the key ingredient.”
“… honesty is encouraged by dense social networks… Trust embedded in personal relations that are strong, frequent, and nested in wider networks…”
“… honesty, civic engagement, and social trust are mutually reinforcing…”
“… social trust can easily generate vicious spirals (or virtuous circles), as my expectations of others’ trustworthiness influences my trustworthiness, which in turn influences others’ behavior.”
“High levels of trust and citizen participation operate through a variety of mechanisms to produce socially desirable outcomes.”
“Where people are trusting and trustworthy, and where they are subject to repeated interactions with fellow citizens, everyday business and social transactions are less costly.”
“Virtually every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust…”
“… where trust and social networks flourish, individuals, firms, neighborhoods, and even nations prosper.”

10. Francis Fukuyama – born 1952

“… trust is not the consequence of rational calculation; it arises from sources like religion or ethical habit that have nothing to do with modernity.”

“… a nations’’s well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic: the level of trust inherent in the society.”

“… rules or habits [give] members of the community grounds for trusting one another… communities are united by trust.”

“Out of… shared values comes trust, and trust… has a large and measurable economic value.”

“Communities depend on mutual trust and will not arise spontaneously without it.”

“Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms on the part of other members of that community.”

“… people who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which has to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means. This legal apparatus, serving as a substitute for trust, entails what economists call ‘transaction costs’. Widespread distrust in a society, in other words, imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.”

“We often take a minimal level of trust and honesty for granted and forget that they pervade everyday economic life and are crucial to its smooth functioning.”

“From an economic standpoint, there are certain clear advantages to being able to operate in a relatively rule-free environment… There is usually an inverse relationship between rules and trust: the more people depend on rules to regulate their interactions, the less they trust each other and vice versa.”

Final Thoughts

Looking at this remarkable collection of insights spanning over two millennia, several profound themes emerge about the nature of trust in human society.

First, there’s a striking evolution in how trust is conceptualized – from Cicero’s conditional view where trust might cease to be morally right, to modern thinkers like Fukuyama who see trust as fundamental economic infrastructure. This progression reflects our growing understanding that trust isn’t merely a personal virtue but a measurable social asset that directly impacts prosperity.

The tension between trust and vulnerability appears consistently across the ages. Machiavelli’s calculated approach to trust, Descartes’ caution about deception, and Mayer’s modern definition all acknowledge that trust inherently involves risk. Yet as Putnam and Fukuyama demonstrate, societies that manage this risk through dense social networks and shared norms reap enormous benefits – lower transaction costs, smoother commerce, and greater collective flourishing.

Perhaps most compelling is the paradox highlighted by multiple thinkers: while trust must be earned through demonstrated trustworthiness, it also requires an initial leap of faith. As Putnam notes, trust creates self-reinforcing cycles – virtuous when reciprocated, vicious when betrayed. This suggests that building high-trust societies isn’t just about creating rules and institutions, but about cultivating what Fukuyama calls “ethical habits” and what earlier philosophers might have termed civic virtue.

In our increasingly complex and interconnected world, these insights feel more relevant than ever. As traditional communities fragment and global interactions multiply, the challenge of maintaining trust across diverse groups becomes both more difficult and more essential. The wisdom collected here suggests that trust isn’t something we can take for granted or engineer through rules alone – it’s a living social practice that requires constant cultivation through repeated positive interactions, shared values, and the courage to remain vulnerable to one another despite the risks.

Thanks for reading!