Facts are Stubborn Things * – Sunday, December 28, 1947
This is the time of the year when we confront ourselves with facts. It should be so at all times, but certain seasons are associated with certain things—and this is a time of inventory. It isn’t always easy to face facts. Often there are things we wish were true which aren’t, and things we wish weren’t true which are. Even the simplest truths can be distasteful if they interfere with our accustomed ways of living and thinking. And often it would seem to be more comfortable to close our eyes to reality and say it isn’t so. But we cannot safely assume that something isn’t so that is so. Of course, there is the ever-present possibility of mental juggling, of tampering with the books, of trying to talk ourselves out of things that are, or talk ourselves into things that aren’t. But trying to explain away truth and reality is somewhat like trying to change the weather by tampering with the barometer.
The instrument is only useful if we let it tell the truth. And the weather doesn’t change when we alter the indicator. Tampering merely makes a false. instrument. It so often happens that we mistake the appearance for the reality, the intention for the performance, the surface for the substance. But no matter how sound some- thing seems, if the substance isn’t there, it isn’t there. There are truths which are irrevocable whether or not they are comfortable or convenient. There are realities which must be taken into account, whether or not we were to wish it were otherwise. And whatever the inventory shows, it is safest to face the facts for “facts are stubborn things.”‘ A good resolve for all of us is the resolve to recognize reality. In business, in public affairs, and in our personal lives, may we have the wisdom, the courage, and the honesty to face the facts.
* Tobias Smollett, 1750.
‘The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the- Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, December 28, 1947, 11:30 ;.m. to 12.00 noon, EST. Copyright 1947.
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December 28, 1947
Broadcast Number 0,958