Who first said Honesty is the best policy?

Answer 1

"Honesty is the best policy" is one of the most popular maxims in the English language - perhaps the most popular. In a poll rating children's familiarity with wisdom cliches, it ranked at the top - and equivalent versions exist in virtually every language. American educator E. D. Hirsch, Jr. cites it as one of a handful of proverbs that every child must learn at an early age - the earlier the better - in order to acquire good behavior.

It was perhaps the favorite motto of America's first President:

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

- George Washington, Farewell Address.

The wisdom is at least 2,500 years old. It first appeared as the moral of Aesop's fable "Mercury and the Woodcutter," a story about two woodcutters - one honest, the other dishonest - and their encounters with the god Mercury (as he was known to the Romans - to the Greeks he was Hermes). In Roman and Greek mythology, Mercury/Hermes is the messenger of the gods, as well as the god of commerce, cleverness, eloquence, travel and thievery. The fable was a favorite with both Greek and Roman children. Any child can easily grasp its timeless moral.

A woodcutter accidentally dropped his old, battered ax, dull and chipped by wear, in a river. The ax sank straight to the bottom, depriving the poor man of the one tool of his trade. With his livelihood lost, the woodcutter sat on the riverbank and began to cry. At that moment, the god Mercury broke through the surface of the water, holding up a splendid golden ax. "Could this be yours, old man?" "Oh, I wish that it were," sighed the woodcutter. Mercury dove back into the icy-cold water and this time brought up a magnificent silver ax. "So this is yours," said the god, offering the man the wonderful ax. "If only it were," lamented the woodcutter. "But my ax is old, and rusted, and chipped on the head." Mercury, pleased with the man's honesty, plunged into the river a third time and surfaced with the woodsman's used ax. "You are an honest man. I want you to take the golden ax and the silver ax as rewards for telling the truth." Thanking his benefactor, the woodsman ran home to tell his wife of his good fortune. As the story spread, a neighbor, who was also a woodcutter, rushed to the same spot on the riverbank and tossed his only ax into the deep water. Suddenly Mercury broke through the water's surface bearing a golden ax. "Is this the ax you lost, my friend?"

"Yes, yes, it is," lied the man, greedily reaching for the magnificent tool. Mercury tossed the golden ax into the water. "I deny you that one," said the god, "and your own ax." "Please, just get me my old ax," pleaded the man. "I won't be able to support my wife and children."

Mercury departed, and the woodsman cried to himself, "Honesty is the best policy."

Roman writers worked Aesop's "honesty" maxim into many of their own fables. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian, born in Spain in 30 C.E., used it in his book Institutionis Oratoriae (80 C.E.), adding his own wise spin:

Divine Providence has granted this gift to man: That all things got by honesty are also the most advantageous to possess.

The first printing of the maxim in English appeared in Europae Speculum (1599), by Sir Edwin Sandys, an English nobleman and a founder of the colony of Virginia: "Our grosse conceipts, who think honestie the best policie" - translated as "A prime concept, who think honesty the best policy." After a tour of the European continent, Sandys published A Relation of the State of Religion (1605), a remarkably tolerant analysis of contemporary creeds, which highlighted the maxim as a universal proverb. Many famous American statesmen incorporated the maxim into their writings. Benjamin Franklin used "honesty is the best policy" twice (1777, 1779), as did Alexander Hamilton (1778, 1784) and Thomas Paine (1778, 1779). American Presidents also favored it: Thomas Jefferson used the maxim once (1785), as did John Quincy Adams (1787) and James Monroe (1794); Andrew Jackson used it twice (1827, 1833), and George Washington penned the motto four times (1785, 1786, 1787, 1796).

"Honesty is the best policy" also appears in Washington Irving's Knickerbocker History of New York (1809), Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1850), and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868).

Answer 2

The phrase "Honesty is the best policy" is credited to Sir Edwin Sandys, an English statesman and one of the founders of the Virginia Company in the early 17th century.