Daily Inspiration Quote by Dean Inge

A warning shot disguised as Victorian decorum, Inge’s line punctures the comforting self-help maxim that morality and self-interest reliably align. By starting with “Let none of us delude himself,” he frames belief in honesty-as-policy not as virtue but as self-deception: the real target isn’t lying so much as the smug certainty that goodness pays.

The phrase “best policy” is key. Inge isn’t arguing about honesty as an ethical principle; he’s attacking honesty as a tactic. That distinction matters because it exposes how easily moral language gets recruited for reputational management. People often praise honesty when they mean “a stable social order where I can predict others’ behavior,” or “a personal brand that reads as authentic.” Inge’s curt reversal, “It is not,” denies the reader the refuge of nuance. The bluntness does rhetorical work: it forces the uncomfortable inventory of moments when truth-telling is punished, weaponized, or simply irrelevant to the outcome.

Context sharpens the bite. Inge lived through an era that watched old certainties buckle under modern bureaucracy, mass politics, and the mechanized slaughter of World War I. In such worlds, honesty can be admirable and still strategically disastrous; institutions reward discretion, partial truths, and the polite lie. Subtext: ethics aren’t vending machines. You don’t insert virtue and reliably receive safety, status, or success.

It’s not a license to deceive so much as a critique of moral merchandising: the comforting story that virtue is just enlightened self-interest. Inge refuses that bargain.