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No false move should ever be made to extricate yourself out of a difficulty, or to gain an advantage.
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“No false move should ever be made to extricate yourself out of a difficulty, or to gain an advantage.”

Benjamin Franklin

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Source
The Morals of Chess
Date
1779
Meaning

Meaning of “No false move should ever be made to…”

Franklin uses a rule of fair chess play as an ethical analogy: escaping difficulty through deception destroys trust and turns apparent advantage into unfair conduct.

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Where does it come from?

Benjamin Franklin, The Morals of Chess, rule 3 in the reviewed public-domain Wikisource transcription. 'No false move should ever be made...' appears in Franklin's etiquette for fair play and functions as an ethical analogy about honesty in competition, not game-theory or behavioral-science evidence.

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DecisionHonestyIntegrityResponsibilitySelf-Control Quotes About Restraint & JudgmentTruthCharacterEthics
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Can we so educate a group of students that there will be in every one of them a conscience on which we can depend.
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“Can we so educate a group of students that there will be in every one of them a conscience on which we can depend.”

Booker T. Washington · Character Building · 1902
Meaning & context

The educational question shifts attention from acquiring information to developing dependable moral judgment, which Washington treats as a central test of character formation.

Source details

Character Building, “Each One His Part,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington asks whether Tuskegee can educate an individual conscience that performs small duties thoroughly even when no audience is watching; the question closes that address’s argument about conscientious responsibility.

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It does not pay an individual to do anything except what his conscience will approve of every day, and every hour and minute in the day.
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“It does not pay an individual to do anything except what his conscience will approve of every day, and every hour and minute in the day.”

Booker T. Washington · Character Building · 1902
Meaning & context

Washington makes conscience a recurring test of conduct, asking whether ordinary choices can withstand one’s own moral approval rather than merely outside scrutiny.

Source details

Character Building, “What Will Pay?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington reports a discussion of honesty in business and uses conscience as a practical test of conduct; the sentence belongs to that address’s argument that dishonest dealing does not pay.

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Receive an injury rather than do one.
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“Receive an injury rather than do one.”

Publilius Syrus · The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus · 1856 translation
Meaning & context

Personal suffering is treated as morally preferable to becoming the person who deliberately inflicts unjust harm on another.

Source details

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, maxim 5, in Darius Lyman’s 1856 English rendering; maxim order can vary across editions.

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The liar is no whit better than the thief.
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“The liar is no whit better than the thief.”

Theodore Roosevelt · The Man with the Muck-Rake · 1906
Meaning & context

Roosevelt argues that criticism loses moral legitimacy when it becomes false, making truthfulness a constraint on reform even when the target of criticism may deserve scrutiny.

Source details

The Man with the Muck-Rake, April 14, 1906. Roosevelt is discussing public criticism, journalism and slander; the surrounding speech simultaneously calls for relentless exposure of genuine wrongdoing when the attack is truthful.

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A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
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“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.”

Aesop · Aesop’s Fables — The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf · Traditional
Voice: Fictional character · Wise man of the village
Meaning & context

Repeated deception damages credibility beyond the original lie: once listeners have learned to expect false alarms, even a later truthful warning can fail to restore belief in time.

Source details

Joseph Jacobs, The Fables of Aesop, “The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf,” Project Gutenberg #28. The wise man of the village gives the moral after the boy’s repeated false cries cause the villagers to ignore his real warning.

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