It all started twenty-five hundred years earlier when a former Greek slave with a talent for storytelling began to formally compile popular folk tales, many of them from India and other Eastern countries. That man, of course, was Aesop, history’s first famous fabulist (the technical term for a teller of fables). Since the time of the ancient Greeks, Aesop’s Fables have been among history’s most popular stories, and for many centuries in the West they have been a staple in the hands of parents and educators attempting to provide moral instruction to young children. Most of the stories can be told in under two minutes—short enough to fit into the most limited attention span—and many feature animals who not only talk, but display a full range of human feelings.
In Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Goat,” a fox falls into a deep well and is unable to escape. A curious goat, passing by, asks what is going on. The fox tells the goat that a great drought is coming and the only way to be sure to have water is to jump into the well. After the gullible goat jumps in, the fox jumps on his back, stands on his horns, and escapes to safety. As the fox bids his farewell to the duped goat, who is now stranded in the well, he says:
Remember next time,
never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
It’s a terrific tale and an elegantly simple portrayal of a complex phenomenon that is still true today—the advice of people in trouble should be regarded with suspicion because their recommendations will likely be self-serving.
In “The Fox and the Crow,” yet another Aesop fable, a hungry fox spies a crow with a piece of food in its beak. Walking over to the tree where the crow is perched, the fox exclaims, “What a beautiful bird! What elegant plumage.” Noticing that the crow is pleased by the flattery, the fox continues to lay it on: “If your voice were equal to your beauty, then you would deserve the title of Queen of all the birds.” Taken in by the ruse, the crow opens its beak to let out a loud caw. As the food tumbles out of the open beak, the hungry fox gobbles it up. Walking off, the fox looks back at the crow and says, “Your voice is fine, but your wit is lacking.” The moral of the story?
Never trust a flatterer.
As the centuries passed, people followed the model of Aesop and began using the words never trust as something like a prefix that could be attached to a whole host of admonitions. You’ll find a few never trust quotations in other chapters of the book, but the remainder of this chapter will be devoted exclusively to them.
Never trust a proctologist with both hands on your shoulders.ANONYMOUS
Humor has long helped people get through life’s difficult moments, and of all the jokes created to help men deal with anxiety about rectal examinations, this is one of the best. Many other wonderful never trust observations have been authored by anonymous sources. Here are a few of my favorites:
Never trust a dog to guard your food.
Never trust a man who says he’s a feminist.
Never trust a man who says he has no bad habits.
Never trust a man who wears a shirt and tie with jeans.
Never trust a politician, especially when he’s speaking.
Never trust someone who tells you to never trust someone.
Never trust your memory;
it makes you forget a favor in a few days,
while it helps you remember an injury for years.
Never trust anyone over thirty.
This 1960s catchphrase has been attributed to all of the famous revolutionary figures of the period—Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd, Jerry Rubin, and Mario Savio—but it is now fairly certain that the original author of the sentiment was a twenty-four-year-old University of California protester named Jack Weinberg. In 1964, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Weinberg as saying: “We have a saying in the movement that you can’t trust anybody over thirty.” Weinberg later admitted that the saying occurred to him on the spur of the moment, but he phrased it as a “movement” maxim to give it an air of authority. Over time, you can’t trust evolved into never trust, and that is the version history remembers. The saying has been parodied in many ways, but the most creative alteration I’ve seen comes from the quotation anthologist Robert Byrne: “Never trust anyone over-dirty.” Byrne’s tweaking of the saying even inspired me to attempt a spin-off: “Never trust anyone over-flirty.”
Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.ANONYMOUS
This admonition has been attributed to Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Oscar Wilde, but it was almost certainly authored by some anonymous wit. The most famous citation of the quotation occurred in 1992. Vice President Dan Quayle was on a political trip to New York City when his aides arranged for a publicity stop at a middle school in Trenton, New Jersey. During his visit, school officials staged a spelling bee and asked the vice president to assist. When Quayle asked twelve-year-old sixth-grader William Figueroa to spell “potato,” the lad did so correctly on a chalkboard. Quayle looked at the board and then quietly said to the boy, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The ‘e’ on the end.” William reluctantly added the vowel and, as he did, the assembled politicos and members of the press gave him a round of applause.
When the event ended, nothing was said about the incident, and the vice president began taking questions. Near the end of the press conference, after a reporter asked, “How do you spell potato?” the vice president knew something was up. For the next few days, the incident was all over the news, with many pundits and Quayle critics viewing it as yet another example of the VP’s lack of intelligence. Quayle tried to make light of the matter, even citing Mark Twain as the author of the “only one way to spell a word” quotation. The story continued to hound Quayle for the remainder of his term, and it is an incident from his life that he has said many times he would prefer to forget.
Never trust anything you read in a travel article.DAVE BARRY, in Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1989)
Barry added: “Travel articles appear in publications that sell large expensive advertisements to tourism-related industries, and these industries do not wish to see articles like: URUGUAY: DON’T BOTHER.”
Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got.
Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.EUBIE BLAKE, legendary composer & musician
Never trust the bureaucracy to get it right.MCGEORGE BUNDY
This was the second of six “lessons in disaster” that Bundy learned as he reflected on—and later learned to regret—his role in crafting the military strategy that resulted in the Vietnam War. Bundy’s reassessment was reported in Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam (2008), by Gordon M. Goldstein. As national security advisor to JFK and LBJ from 1961 to 1966, Bundy was an outspoken “hawk.” In the decades after the war, though, he had a change of heart. One additional lesson that Bundy learned was also beautifully expressed: “Never deploy military means in pursuit of indeterminate ends.”
Never trust a woman who says: “I’m a woman’s woman.”JULIE BURCHILL