When a Man Puts His Own Moral Worth Low, Men Will Take Him at His Own Valuation

"Besides exciting the disapproval and disgust of all good men, the person who habitually supports his assertions by an oath seems thereby to obtrude an acknowledgement that he considers his bare word unlikely, and indeed unworthy, to be believed, and when a person thus puts his own moral worth low, men will naturally take him at his own valuation."

--Robert Johnstone [1871], from Lectures on the Epistle of James (Klock and Klock, 1976, p. 398)

Aesop's fables: The Daw in Borrowed Plumes