Kevin Stilley

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Honesty – select quotes

One lie will destroy a whole reputation for integrity.
~ Baltasar Gracian, in The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
~ Samuel Butler

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fastly misled us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no timepieces so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.
~ Charles Caleb Colton

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
~ Noel Coward

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
~ Charles Dickens

The louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
~ Samuel Johnson

White lies are but the ushers to black ones.
~ Frederick Marryat

An honest man is the noblest work of God.
~ Alexander Pope

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at evening.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
~ Winston Churchill

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
~ Walter Scott

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
~ William Shakespeare

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
~ William Shakespeare

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
~ George Bernard Shaw

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
~ Mark Twain

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
~ Mark Twain

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Master List of Great Quotes

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Trust – select quotes

The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them.
~ Camillo Cavour

Trust everybody, but cut the cards.
~ Finley Peter Dunne

Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
~ George MacDonald

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
~ William Shakespeare

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
~ Corrie Ten Boom

He who mistrusts most should be trusted least.
~ Theognis of Megara

Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.
~ Isaac Watts

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
~ The Bible, Luke 16:10

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Golf: A Test of Character

In 1990, Tom Lehman was attempting to get on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour. In order to do so, he had to go through qualifying school, a rigorous test of nerves and skill. During this event, as he addressed the ball, the gusty wind caught the ball and moved it. The rule is clear; if the ball moves after you address it, you are penalized one stroke. Tom called the penalty on himself, and, you guessed it, missed qualifying for the tour by one stroke.

When asked why he turned himself in, he responded, “If a breach of the rules had occurred and I didn’t call it on myself, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror, you’re only as good as your word. And your word wouldn’t be worth much if you can’t even be honest with yourself.” You see, Lehman valued integrity more than playing on the tour. As a result, the decision was easy and made without regret, even though he was forced to wait another year before he could play with the “big boys.”

(Excerpted from the Bent Tree Bible Fellowship publication Something Bigger Than Ourselves.

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Dishonest Churches

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This Sunday, many preachers will stand in the pulpit and proclaim the virtue of honesty and the primacy of Truth. And, then the church will run an ad in the local paper that seems to ignore that message. Consider the following account shared by Larry Osborne in his book Sticky Church.

“When I first came to North Coast, we were a small church meeting in an old high school cafeteria. I hadn’t been there long when someone showed me an adveertisement we were putting in the local newspaper each weekend. You know the drill: We weere supposedly the friendliest church in town, with great preaching, great worship, and a world-class children’s program.

“The truth was, we had none of those things. Not even close. I’m not sure I would have kept coming if I hadn’t been the pastor.

“The cafeteria was old and smelly. Remnants of food fights hung from the wall. One whole side of the room was a large Plexiglas window, which was cool–except when skateboarders started showing off in the middle of a sermon. That was hard to compete with. Most of the time they’d win. They were a lot more interesting than my early sermons. They’d probably still be more interesting. That’s one reason we moved.

“So I did the only reasonable thing. I canceled the ad. I had enought issues on my hands. I didn’t need the Federal Communications Commission hassling me for false advertising.”

When was the last time you checked your promotional literature for accuracy?

I hasten to say that I think one of the most critical skills of leadership is storytelling. We tell the stories of who we are and in the process we become what we say we are. In this instance, ontology recapitulates philology.

However, leaders need to be circumspect to avoid dishonest misrepresentation. It may not be true that your church is the most loving church in your town, but a similar message can be sent by saying, “We want to be the most loving church in town.” With this alteration you are still casting a transformative vision, you are still painting a picture with which people can identify and an ideal to which people can aspire, but you are not misrepresenting yourself.

So, tell your church’s story, cast your churches vision, but please, please, please be honest about it.

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Tidbits from an email I received

Laws of Parenting

1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.

2. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.

3. Toys multiply to fill any space available.

4. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.

5. If the shoe fits…it’s expensive.

6. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.

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My friend is always telling his wife that housekeeping would be a snap if only she would organize her time better. Recently he had a chance to put his theory into practice while his wife was away.

When I popped in one evening to see how he was managing, he crowed, “I made a cake, frosted it, washed the kitchen windows, cleaned all the cupboards, scrubbed the kitchen floor, walls and ceiling and even had a bath.”

I was about to concede that perhaps he was a better manager than his wife, when he added sheepishly,

“When I was making the chocolate frosting, I forgot to turn off the mixer before taking the beaters out of the bowl, so I had to do all the rest.”

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When I was a mother’s helper, the mom of the family I worked for sat with her three oldest children and watched a PBS special showing the birth of a baby. The mom thought it would be a good starting point for answering questions about the facts of life.

As her five-year-old studied the baby coming out of the birth canal, he asked, “Mom, does that hurt?”

“Oh, yes, it does,” she said, remembering her difficult deliveries.

“Wow,” he continued in awe, “does it hurt the mother too?”

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A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.”

The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17.

Every hand went up.

The minister smiled and said, “Mark has only 16 chapters.

I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.”

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Government Contracts

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House in D.C. One from New Jersey, another from Tennessee and the third, from Florida.

They go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The Florida contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The New Jersey contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?”

The New Jersey contractor whispers back, “$1,000 for me, $1,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”

“Done!” replies the government official.

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