Quotes of the Day

Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
—Spanish proverb

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
— Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), American humorist (1818-1885)

A promise made is a debt unpaid.
— Robert W. Service, American poet (1874-1958), in The Cremation of Sam McGee, 1907

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.
— Abraham Lincoln, 16th American president (1809-1865)

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.
— Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), religious leader (b. 1920)

I have not observed mens honesty to increase with their riches.
— Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and third U.S. president (1743-1826), in a letter to Jeremiah Moor, 1800

Honesty is not a policy, it is a state of mind.
— Eugene LHote, philosopher

Don't tell your friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.
— Logan Pearsall Smith, American writer (1865-1946)

Frankness invites frankness.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, public philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.
— Emily Post, American etiquette authority and author (1873-1960)

The pursuit of truth will set you free — even if you never catch up with it.
— Clarence Darrow, American lawyer (1857-1938)

Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths.
— Edgar A. Shoaff

All advertising, whether it lies in the field of business or of politics, will carry success by continuity and regular uniformity of application.
— Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany's Third Reich (1889-1945)

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, youve got it made.
— Jean Giraudoux, French dramatist (1882-1944)

Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable.
— Leo Burnett, American advertising pioneer (1891-1971)

When all else fails, tell the truth.
— Donald T. Regan, American business executive, Treasury Secretary, chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan (1918-2003)

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.
— Edgar J. Mohn

If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.
— The Talmud

What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth.
— Jewish proverb

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.
— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-1977)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and realistic.
— John F. Kennedy, 20th-century American president (from the Yale Commencement address, 1962)

A belief is not true because it is useful.
— Henri Amiel, Swiss writer (1821-1881)

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings — that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
— Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), Indian philosopher and founder of Buddhism (c. 563-c. 483 B.C.)

*From The Josephson Institute of Ethics