Manse Everard:
"'Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT p. 637.
Jan Trembecki:
"'Most overrated virtue in the universe, sincerity.'"
-Poul Anderson, Shield (New York, 1970), p. 116.
Lucifer Morningstar:
"Honesty is a somewhat overrated virtue, Remiel."
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Kindly Ones (New York, 1996), Part 4, p. 4, panel 5.
No doubt this list can be extended.
2 comments:
Paul:
Attributed to a number of different witty persons (George Burns, Groucho Marx, Jean Girardoux, and doubtless others) is some variant of the statement: "The important thing is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Kaor, Paul!
And I'm very strongly inclined to agree with Anderson about "sincerity" being an overrated virtue. The fanatics of the early USSR and Mao's rule of China were certainly "sincere," and also guilty of killing people by the tens of millions in the name of their ideology. I far prefer leaders who are not fanatics, who are aware of how far they can decently go, who have no illusions about either themselves or the human race.
Thank you, I'll take the kindly, well meaning Louis XVI any day over the fanatical Robespierre!
Sean
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