“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”

einstein quote

These days, when people tell me that it’s nitpicking to discuss whether quotes attributed to the Buddha actually come from the Buddhist scriptures, I often counter with this quote from Einstein:

“Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”

Of course we could do with a Fake Einstein Quote website, but as it happens this one is genuine. It comes from the piece of writing he was engaged in at the time of his death.

6 thoughts on ““Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.””

  1. Also in the New Testament, Luke 16:10–
    “Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones” — the original is in Greek. The faithful person is reliable, can be trusted. The thought also occurs in Latin and wikipedia gets this back to “the late seventeenth century”. Missing some centuries . . .

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