Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

Love your country, but never trust its government.ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, widely attributed, but not verified

Never trust a man’s patriotism who talks loudly in politics.FREEMAN HUNT, in an 1842 essay

Never trust a man unless you’ve got his pecker in your pocket.LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Never trust a smiling reporter.EDWARD KOCH

Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from his left armpit.ALICE ROOSEVELT LONGWORTH, on Douglas MacArthur

Never trust a man when he’s in love, drunk, or running for office.SHIRLEY MACLAINE

Never trust a weeping man.DOUG MARLETTE

Marlette offered this thought in a 1993 Esquire magazine issue on “60 Things Every Man Should Know.” His point was that, in an age of psychobabble and talk-show therapy, genuine feeling has been replaced by disingenuous and inauthentic displays of emotion.

Never trust a person with margarine in their fridge.JOYCE MAYNARD, from a character

in her 2003 novel The Usual Rules

Never trust a woman who says she isn’t angry.ANDREW MCCARTHY, as Kevin Dolenz,

in the 1985 film St. Elmo’s Fire

“Never Trust a Woman”BRENT MYDLAND, title of song on Grateful Dead album

Dozin’ at the Knick (recorded in 1990, released in 1996)

Mydland was the fourth—and longest-serving—keyboardist to play with the Grateful Dead. He joined the group in 1979 and remained until his death in 1990. The key lyric of the song went this way:

Never trust a woman who wears her pants too tight,

She might love you tomorrow, but she’ll be gone tomorrow night.

Never trust a sanctimonious lawyer.PETER A. OLSSON

Never trust a man who raves about fresh-cooked vegetables.P. J. O’ROURKE

Never trust a person who has or thinks he has a cause to dislike you.

He will surely stick you in the back.GEORGE S. PATTON

Never trust a man who speaks ill of his mother.ENGLISH PROVERB

I found this proverb in The Salt-Cellars , an 1889 collection of sayings compiled by the American clergyman C. H. Spurgeon. He added this explanatory note: “He must be base at heart. If he turns on her that bore him, he will turn on you sooner or later.” A similar English proverb goes this way: “Never trust a man who speaks ill of his wife.”

The proverbs of many nations and regions have begun with the words never trust. Here are a few of the best, along with their likely place of origin:

Never trust a man a dog doesn’t like. (American)

Never trust a fool with a sword. (Arab)

Never trust a woman with a man’s voice. (French)

Never trust a woman who mentions her virtue. (French)

Never trust a man you have injured. (Spanish)

Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles

but keeps from you all his joys. (Yiddish)

Never trust any friend or servant

with any matter that may endanger thine estate.SIR WALTER RALEIGH, advice to his son

about managing household affairs

Never trust a woman who

doesn’t have an instant hormonal response to diamonds.KATE REARDON

Never trust a man who says he’ll never hurt you.CHRISTINE RIMMER, from a character in

A Home for the Hunter (1994)

Never trust the food

in a restaurant on top of the tallest building in town

that spends a lot of time folding napkins.ANDY ROONEY

Never trust a man who says he is only a little crooked,

and that the crookedness is exercised in your interest.THEODORE ROOSEVELT

This well-known quotation first appeared in Roosevelt’s The New Nationalism (1910). He famously added: “If he will be crooked for you, he will be crooked against you.” Roosevelt has also been credited with this saying: “Never trust a man who says he will benefit you by pulling down your neighbor.”

Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near.HELEN ROWLAND

Cardinal rule for all hitters with two strikes on them:

Never trust the umpire.ROBERT SMITH, former president of

the International Baseball Federation

Never trust a landlord to make improvements after you have moved in.WES SMITH, in Welcome to the Real World (1987)

Never Trust a Man in Alligator Loafers DONNA SOZIO, title of 2007 book, subtitled What His

Shoes Really Say About His True Love Potential

But there is one thing I can tell you:

Never trust a man who says, “Trust me.”LOUANNE STEPHENS, to Lolita Davidovich,

who played the title role in the 1989 film Blaze

(screenplay by Ron Shelton)

At the beginning of the film , Fannie Belle Fleming (played by Davidovich) is about to leave her backwoods shanty in West Virginia for a job in the city. As she is packing her guitar to get on the bus, her mother (played by Louanne Stephens) warns, “You gotta be careful of men.” When Fannie Belle says, “Well I thought I was looking for a man,” her mother replies, “Well, you is.” And then she adds, “It’s complicated. I mean, there ain’t too many good ones out there like your daddy. And what you gotta do is . . . well, you just gotta sort it out for yourself.” Mrs. Fleming pauses, thinks for a moment, and then concludes with the never trust admonition above. The saying may have been used before the 1989 film, but I have not been able to find an earlier appearance. The line did begin to show up with great frequency in the 1990s, though. For example, in his 1992 novel Steel Beach, John Varley has a character say:

Never trust anybody who says “trust me.”

Except just this once, of course.

Never trust your memory.BRIAN TRACY, in The 100 Absolutely

Unbreakable Rules of Business Success (2000)

Never trust a woman who wears mauve,

whatever her age may be,

or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons.OSCAR WILDE

These words come from the character Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Speaking to Dorian, he adds, “It always means that they have a history.”

“Never put anything on paper, my boy,”

my old father used to say to me,

“and never trust a man with a small black moustache.”P. G. WODEHOUSE, from a

character in Cocktail Time (1958)

Never trust a computer you can’t throw out of a window.STEVE WOZNIAK, cofounder (with Steve Jobs) of Apple Computer,

in yet another thinly veiled swipe at IBM

seven

Never Give In. Never, Never, Never, Never!

Multiple Neverisms

On October 29, 1941, Winston Churchill visited Harrow School—his alma mater—to address the student body. It was a difficult time for the English people, and Churchill was doing his best to bolster their resolve. The Battle of Britain had taken its toll on the entire population, especially the schoolchildren. After joining the students in the singing of traditional songs, Churchill gave a speech that lasted less than five minutes. No recording devices were available to preserve the speech, but the full text does exist, and it contains some of history’s most famous words: