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Who really said it

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it

Not Harry S. Truman — a 1950s American gag Unknown — an anonymous American gag line Anonymous · earliest documented 23 July 1951, in a newspaper comic strip
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The line is an anonymous American joke of the early 1950s. Its earliest documented appearance is a “Modest Maidens” comic strip of 23 July 1951, and from April 1954 newspapers printed it as the property of Mortimer Snerd, Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy. Truman’s name attached to it decades later, in a reference book that supplied no citation.

Last verified 9 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it” not Harry S. Truman. An anonymous American gag line: earliest documented 23 July 1951 in the "Modest Maidens" comic strip (Corpus Christi Times); the exact wording appears in a 1960 West Virginia University bulletin, credited to Mortimer Snerd. The Truman attribution is disputed in Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2006), p. 224. Via quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Harry S. Truman. Use the credit shown above instead.

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of truth and character. Theme: "Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Earliest citation
“Modest Maidens” comic strip by Jay Alan, Corpus Christi Times, 23 July 1951, p. 15
Exact wording first seen
Engineering Experiment Station Bulletin, West Virginia University, issues 57–58 (1960), p. 24 — credited to Mortimer Snerd
Truman credit
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1992), attributed without citation
Disputed by
Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2006), p. 224

Personal relationships must be rooted in a sincerity which can be trusted. Have you ever heard Mortimer Snerd’s definition of sincerity? Well, Mortimer Snerd said, “Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.” 1960 · credited to a dummy

Engineering Experiment Station Bulletin, West Virginia University, issues 57–58 (1960), p. 24, as transcribed by Barry Popik. It is the earliest citation in his trail to carry the wording exactly as it circulates today — and it credits a ventriloquist’s dummy, not a president.

Barry Popik: the citation trail, 1951 to 1972

The paper trail

  • 23 July 1951 — the earliest citation on record is not a president but a newspaper cartoon. The Corpus Christi Times ran a “Modest Maidens” strip by Jay Alan (pen name of J. Alan Klein) carrying “My dear, there’s nothing like being sincere, whether you mean it or not!” Barry Popik transcribes it from page 15 ↗.
  • 1954 — the gag attaches itself to a ventriloquist’s dummy. The San Diego Union of 14 April and the Chicago Daily Tribune of 12 December both print it as Mortimer Snerd’s: “Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not.” Both columns are transcribed in Popik’s entry ↗. Snerd was the slow-witted second dummy of Edgar Bergen ↗.
  • 1960 — the modern wording appears verbatim, still credited to Snerd, in a West Virginia University Engineering Experiment Station Bulletin: “Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.” By 1963 the Rev. Ross Coggins is quoting it in a paper read at a Texas church workshop, and by 1972 Earl Wilson is calling it fortune-cookie wisdom. All three are dated in the trail ↗.
  • 1992, then 2006 — The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations credits Truman with no citation attached; Ralph Keyes’s The Quote Verifier replies that it is not something the president is known to have said, nor was likely to have said. Wikiquote files it under Disputed ↗.

No identifiable authored work is the origin of this wording. The earliest documented appearance is a 1951 newspaper comic strip carrying a variant, and the exact modern sentence surfaces in 1960 credited to a comedy character — both well after the 1931 United States public-domain cut-off, and neither established as the source. Because the coiner and the originating work are both unknown, quotle.info asserts no copyright status for this sentence.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Three names, none of them the author

This line has been carried by a president, a ventriloquist’s dummy and a pair of British cabaret comedians. The dated record puts one of them years after the line was already in American print, treats another as a vehicle rather than an author, and gives the third no support at all.

Harry S. Truman Disputed

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attributed the line to Truman without a citation, and Ralph Keyes’s The Quote Verifier (2006, p. 224) answered that it is “not something the president is known to have said or is likely to have said.” Not one of the newspaper or book citations running from July 1951 to October 1972 mentions Truman at all. Popik transcribes both the citations and the Keyes entry ↗.

Mortimer Snerd (Edgar Bergen) Vehicle, not author

From April 1954 the gag ran in newspaper joke columns as Snerd’s — “Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not” — and a 1960 West Virginia University bulletin still introduced it as “Mortimer Snerd’s definition of sincerity.” But a variant was already in print in July 1951 in a comic strip with no connection to Bergen, and gag columns of the period routinely hung stray jokes on whichever comic character was popular. The 1951, 1954 and 1960 citations, side by side ↗.

Flanders and Swann Postdates the earliest citations

Earl Wilson credited the line to Michael Flanders in the Milwaukee Sentinel of 1 December 1959, and it is still repeated as the duo’s. But their revue At the Drop of a Hat opened on 31 December 1956 — after the American citations of 1951 and 1954. Wikipedia dates the revue’s opening night ↗.

The honest answer is that nobody knows who wrote it. It is an anonymous American gag of the early 1950s that passed through a comic strip, a ventriloquist’s dummy, a droodle column and a fortune cookie before a reference book handed it to a president. Barry Popik’s dated citation trail, 1951 to 1972 ↗.

Context

A joke about a joke

The saying is a paradox with a punchline: sincerity is the one quality that cannot survive being performed, so an instruction to perform it is funny by construction. That is exactly the register the earliest citations sit in — a flirtatious newspaper cartoon, a ventriloquist’s dummy, Roger Price’s Droodles column, and finally, by 1972, a fortune cookie. It was never advice. It was a gag about the people who give advice.

Which is why the Truman credit is so odd, and so sticky. Truman’s public reputation was blunt plain-speaking, so a cynical aside about faking sincerity reads, to a modern ear, like something he might have muttered on the way out of a room. That plausibility is the whole mechanism: nobody checked, because it sounded like him.

It was never advice. It was a gag about the people who give advice.

How a dummy’s line became a president’s

The wording drifts across Popik’s citations. The 1951 strip has “there’s nothing like being sincere, whether you mean it or not.” By April 1954 it has compressed to “Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not.” The even if phrasing is already in print by February 1959 — the Salt Lake Tribune runs “All lists of personality tips include ‘be sincere.’ Even if you don’t mean it” — and the sentence reaches its modern shape in the 1960 West Virginia University bulletin. That is the shape that stuck.

The Truman credit enters the reference literature with The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations in 1992, with no citation attached — which is precisely what Wikiquote notes about it. Ralph Keyes flagged the problem in The Quote Verifier in 2006. Quote aggregators have gone on printing it under Truman’s name ever since.

The same joke has a better-known sibling: the line about faking sincerity being the secret of success, routinely pinned on Groucho Marx or Samuel Goldwyn. Quote Investigator finds no substantive evidence for either, and traces the remark no earlier than a 1962 Leonard Lyons column in which Celeste Holm relayed an unnamed actor’s version about faking honesty. Quote Investigator on the fake-honesty line ↗.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Barry Popik on the sincerity gagbarrypopik.com

The dated citation trail, 1951 to 1972, with each newspaper and book passage transcribed in full. The anchor source for this page.
Harry S. Truman: Disputeden.wikiquote.org

Files the line under Disputed, noting the uncited Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attribution and the rebuttal in Keyes.
The Quote Verifier (2006)archive.org

Ralph Keyes's reference work, St. Martin's Press, 2006, 422 pages; page 224 disputes the Truman credit. Borrowable scan.
Edgar Bergenen.wikipedia.org

The ventriloquist behind Mortimer Snerd, the character American newspapers credited with the line from 1954.
Flanders and Swannen.wikipedia.org

Dates the duo's revue At the Drop of a Hat to an opening night of 31 December 1956, after the line was already in American print.
If you can fake that, you've got it madequoteinvestigator.com

Quote Investigator on the sibling sincerity gag, traced no earlier than a 1962 Leonard Lyons column and wrongly pinned on Groucho Marx and Samuel Goldwyn.

Instead of Truman

The closest thing to an author

Edgar Bergen

1903–1978 · American ventriloquist and radio comedian

Bergen (16 February 1903 – 30 September 1978) was the American ventriloquist whose dummies — the wisecracking Charlie McCarthy and the slow-witted Mortimer Snerd — became national radio stars on a medium where nobody could see the trick. From April 1954 onward American joke columns printed the sincerity gag as Snerd’s line, and a 1960 university bulletin still called it “Mortimer Snerd’s definition of sincerity” — the earliest appearance of the wording exactly as it circulates today. That does not make Bergen the coiner: a variant was already in print in July 1951 with no connection to him, and mid-century gag columns routinely hung stray jokes on whichever comic character was popular. No source documents who wrote it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented in

Barry Popik, “Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it,” barrypopik.com, 18 September 2012. Earliest documented form: “Modest Maidens” comic strip by Jay Alan, Corpus Christi Times, 23 July 1951, 15. The exact modern wording appears, credited to Mortimer Snerd, in Engineering Experiment Station Bulletin, issues 57–58 (Morgantown: West Virginia University, 1960), 24. The attribution to Truman is disputed in Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 224.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it’?” Last verified 9 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/always-be-sincere-even-if-you-dont-mean-it/

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