Motivation Quote by Earl Wilson

A compact slice of American wit, Earl Wilsons line praises character by imagining the least trustworthy arena and declaring it safe in one persons hands. Craps is a game of dice, chance, and visibility. The whole table wants to see the roll; the bones bounce where everyone can watch, precisely because the temptation to cheat is ever-present. Shift that scene to a telephone and the visual proof disappears. All that remains is a claim about what happened. To say you could play craps with someone over the phone is to say their word is as solid as the evidence your eyes would normally demand.

The humor rests on hyperbole, but it also reveals a cultural ideal. American speech loves testable metaphors for trust. Betting, dice, and games serve as shortcuts to measuring integrity. Wilson, a Broadway columnist steeped in showbiz and gossip, knew the value of a reputation that could survive a world of spin. In his milieu, where stories morph as they pass from mouth to mouth, a person whose voice alone settles the score is rare and impressive. The image of the telephone also fixes the line in a mid-20th-century sensibility, when long-distance calls carried urgency and voice was the only channel. No video, no receipts, just tone, timing, and the moral credit attached to a name.

The praise extends beyond honesty as mere truth-telling. It gestures toward a sturdier virtue: reliability under temptation. The stakes of a private, unverifiable roll are high precisely because the reward for lying is immediate and the risk of exposure is low. To pass that test in imagination is to be trustworthy in life. Wilson turns that ethical calculus into a joke that lands cleanly, because the joke depends on a picture everyone recognizes: the difference between seeing and believing, and the rare person who makes them the same.