If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.
Interpretation
A reputation for honesty is essential, even in dishonest fields.
This quote by Terry Pratchett highlights the paradox that even in the world of crime, where wrongdoing is the norm, a person’s reputation for honesty can be a critical asset. It suggests that trustworthiness can be a strategic advantage, implying that integrity holds value even in places where it is least expected.
In practice
In a discussion about ethics in business.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.
Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books.
Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.
To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment.
The one who confidently looks forward to an eternal reward for his efforts in mortality is constantly sustained through his deepest trials. When he is disappointed in love, he does not commit suicide. When loved ones die, he doesn’t despair; when he loses a coveted contest, he doesn’t falter; when war and destruction dissipate his future, he doesn’t sink into a depression. He lives above his world and never loses sight of the goal of his salvation.
I divide the world into three Classes - The few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.
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