My father was a certain kind of man - I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect properly on my father's name.
Sidney PoitierRead
I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how language can manipulate the truth and suggests that everyone is guilty of bending the truth at times.
Sidney Poitier reflects on the nature of truth and honesty, acknowledging that people often navigate moral and ethical boundaries through careful manipulation of language. This implies that while one may not directly lie, the way they use words can distort reality, making it easy for anyone to deceive or mislead, intentionally or not. His observation suggests that this tendency is a common human trait, confronting us with the complexity of honesty in communication.
Themes
TruthCommunicationLanguageDeceptionEthicsHonesty
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about ethical communication, this quote can illustrate how easily language can distort truth.
More from Sidney Poitier
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We're all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual, unending struggle against those imperfections.
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I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.
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