Humor & Life Quote by Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx takes a polite civic ritual - asking for honesty - and flips it into a booby trap. The line works because it mimics the cadence of common sense advice ("There's one way to find out...") only to detonate it with a punchline that indicts the advice itself. In a single beat, Groucho turns sincerity into a tell: the man who answers too cleanly, too quickly, is performing virtue, not possessing it.

The intent is less about cynicism for its own sake than about puncturing America’s obsession with self-certification. Honesty, in Groucho’s worldview, isn’t a badge you pin on; it’s something you demonstrate under pressure, over time, when it costs you. The crook, by contrast, has every incentive to treat morality as a marketing slogan. That’s why the "Yes" is damning: it’s the sound of someone selling you an identity.

Subtextually, the joke targets the comforting idea that character is easily legible. If all it takes is a question, then we can keep trusting the surface of things - the handshake, the résumé, the confident smile. Groucho’s gag says that surface is exactly where the con lives.

The context matters: Marx came up through vaudeville and the Depression-era entertainment machine, watching hustlers, bosses, and polished public figures thrive on charm. His comedy often treats institutions - romance, money, respectability - as rackets with better lighting. Here, the laugh is a small act of self-defense: be suspicious of anyone who advertises their decency like a product.