
“But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.”
Source: White Night
As quoted in Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography (1986) by Robert A. Caro and William Knowlton Zinsser. Also quoted in Truman by David McCullough (1992), p. 44, New York: Simon & Schuster.-
Context: You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right … Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what you are not.
“But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.”
Source: White Night
“Never let anyone shame you into doing anything you don't choose to do. Keep your identity.”
Source: Valley of the Dolls
“How to make friends and keep them.”
Four Minute Essays Vol. 7 (1919), A School for Living
“The best of the diviner breed are never wrong because they never set anything in stone.”
Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 79 (p. 555)