Lessons in Integrity --DeWese

Wait, here comes another one just popping into my head. Listen to this gem. A little neglect may breed mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.

All of my great quotes over nearly 20 years came straight out of my head. After all, a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed and a clear conscience is a sure card.

I'm sorry I had to use this column to refute the defamatory assertions of my editors. These columns are supposed to be about something and now that I think about it, this one is about integrity in selling.

Many years ago several hundred print buyers were surveyed about the qualities they seek in print salespeople. Their highest priority was honesty.

When I think about the great print salespeople I know, they all begin and end with integrity. They may not have been that slick or articulate, but they reeked of honesty. If they tell you something is going to happen, then you can take it to the bank.

I'll just reinforce that point with a few more quotes I made up on the spot. Honesty is the best policy. No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth. The lie was dead and damned, and truth stood up instead. Tis strange, but true; for truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.

I'll bet writers will be referencing my quotes years from now. I'll probably be a whole chapter in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

And to you hotshot editors, find something better to do than attack my prose. I've got my readers and all you have are sharp pencils. My parting shot: a fly bit the bare pate of a bald man who, in endeavoring to crush it, gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death? What will you do to yourself, who has added insult to injury?"