Fifty Common Sayings Naming Mental and Behavioral Actions Resting on the Six Commitments

 

Fifty Common Sayings Naming Mental and Behavioral Actions Resting on the Six Commitments

Corpus in use: The Six Philosophical Commitments That Ground Stoic Practice; Dogmata, the Six Commitments, and the Structure of Sterling’s Stoicism. Commitment key: C1 Substance Dualism, C2 Libertarian Free Will, C3 Ethical Intuitionism, C4 Foundationalism, C5 Correspondence Theory of Truth, C6 Moral Realism.

Where the previous two lists named felt states and performed acts directly, this one works one level up — folk sayings that encode a mental or behavioral action as common wisdom. Each saying is unintelligible as advice unless at least two of the six commitments are already true.

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1. Honesty is the best policy. C5 + C6 — truthful speech is treated as both factually accurate and the morally superior course.
2. Actions speak louder than words. C2 + C5 — a freely performed act is treated as more reliable evidence of truth than mere assertion.
3. The truth will out. C5 + C4 — the fact is fixed and will eventually surface regardless of present concealment.
4. You reap what you sow. C2 + C6 — freely chosen acts generate real, deserved consequences.
5. An eye for an eye. C2 + C6 — a freely committed wrong generates a real, proportionate desert.
6. Turn the other cheek. C2 + C6 — freely declining a deserved retaliation in answer to a real wrong.
7. Practice what you preach. C5 + C6 — one's stated standard and actual conduct are held to a single real measure.
8. A man is only as good as his word. C1 + C2 — an enduring self's worth is tied to whether its freely given commitments hold.
9. Two wrongs don't make a right. C6 + C4 — wrongness is a fixed fact a second wrong cannot cancel or convert.
10. Where there's smoke, there's fire. C5 + C4 — an observed sign is read as evidence of a determinate underlying fact.
11. The truth hurts. C5 + C6 — correspondence to an unwelcome fact carries real weight regardless of preference.
12. Better late than never. C2 + C6 — a freely performed right act retains real value even when delayed.
13. A leopard can't change its spots. C1 + C4 — character is treated as a stable underlying fact about the self, not a surface behavior.
14. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. C1 + C6 — the self's real worth is held distinct from and immune to mere external speech.
15. The truth shall set you free. C5 + C6 — aligning belief with fact is treated as a real liberation, not merely a preference.
16. There is honor among thieves. C1 + C6 — even among wrongdoers, a real standard of loyalty is recognized as binding.
17. Live and let live. C2 + C6 — each agent's free choices are granted a real claim to non-interference.
18. Don't judge a book by its cover. C5 + C4 — appearance is distinguished from an underlying fact appearance can fail to track.
19. What's done is done. C5 + C4 — the past is a fixed fact no present wish can revise.
20. You made your bed; now lie in it. C2 + C6 — a freely made choice generates a real, binding consequence.
21. Let bygones be bygones. C2 + C6 — a free act of release answering to a real wrong now treated as settled.
22. A promise is a promise. C1 + C2 — the same enduring self remains bound by a commitment it freely originated.
23. Innocent until proven guilty. C5 + C4 — guilt is a fact procedure approximates, with the presumption serving as the foundation until rebutted.
24. The buck stops here. C1 + C2 — responsibility is located in a single enduring agent's free decision, not deflected onward.
25. Cheaters never prosper. C6 + C5 — wrongdoing is held to carry a real consequence that eventually shows itself as fact.
26. Crime doesn't pay. C6 + C5 — the same structure, applied specifically to law-breaking.
27. Justice is blind. C6 + C4 — fairness is treated as a fixed, impartial standard unaffected by who stands before it.
28. A clear conscience is a soft pillow. C3 + C1 — the self's peace is tied to the direct moral self-assessment it carries.
29. Confession is good for the soul. C2 + C6 — freely aligning your account with a real wrong relieves a real burden.
30. Honesty is its own reward. C6 + C2 — a freely chosen truthful act is treated as carrying genuine value independent of consequence.
31. A liar is not believed even when he tells the truth. C5 + C4 — credibility rests on a track record measured against fact, a foundation a single lie can undermine.
32. The truth speaks for itself. C5 + C4 — a fact's evidential weight is treated as self-sufficient, requiring no further support.
33. Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. C6 + C4 — moral standing functions as a fixed foundation immune to prevalence.
34. Character is what you do when no one is watching. C1 + C6 — the self's real moral worth is located in conduct, not in the audience for it.
35. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. C1 + C6 — an agent's interior state and the genuine goodness of an act are treated as separable, with intention alone insufficient.
36. A man's word is his bond. C1 + C2 — the same enduring self remains held to a freely given commitment as if it were a binding contract.
37. Justice delayed is justice denied. C6 + C4 — justice is treated as a real, time-sensitive standard rather than a status achievable at any pace.
38. Truth is stranger than fiction. C5 + C4 — reality is treated as a fixed fact independent of and sometimes exceeding what is expected or invented.
39. Give the devil his due. C6 + C2 — even a disliked agent's freely earned desert is treated as a real claim that must be honored.
40. Speak the truth even if your voice shakes. C2 + C5 — a free act of aligning speech with fact is upheld despite fear.
41. Stand for something or you'll fall for anything. C2 + C4 — a freely chosen commitment to a real foundation is what prevents arbitrary drift.
42. The truth needs no defense. C5 + C4 — a fact's standing is treated as independent of argument or advocacy.
43. The chickens come home to roost. C6 + C5 — real consequences of past wrongdoing are treated as inevitable facts that eventually arrive.
44. Blood is thicker than water. C1 + C6 — a real, enduring bond between selves is treated as carrying special moral weight.
45. Fooled once, shame on you; fooled twice, shame on me. C2 + C5 — responsibility for continued false belief shifts to the agent who failed to revise it against fact.
46. Don't cry over spilled milk. C5 + C4 — a fixed past fact cannot be undone by present distress, and is treated as such.
47. Old sins cast long shadows. C6 + C5 — a real wrong's consequences are treated as persisting facts rather than dissolving with time.
48. Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. C5 + C4 — a fact's standing is treated as ultimately indestructible regardless of present suppression.
49. He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. C1 + C6 — judgment of another's real wrongdoing is held to a standard the judge's own real conduct must also meet.
50. What goes around comes around. C6 + C5 — moral desert is treated as a real fact that eventually manifests in the world.

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Closing observation on distribution. C5 (Correspondence Theory) and C6 (Moral Realism) dominate this register almost completely — folk sayings are, structurally, compressed assertions that something is really true or really right, which is exactly what those two commitments make possible. C2 and C1 appear wherever the saying turns on an agent's freely originated commitment or an enduring self bearing consequences over time. C4 (Foundationalism) shows up wherever the saying treats some fact or standard as fixed and underived — justice, truth, character. C3 (Ethical Intuitionism) is nearly absent: only one entry, the clear-conscience saying, names the direct perceptual act itself rather than simply asserting the fact perceived. Sayings tell you that something is true or right; they almost never describe the moment of seeing that it is — which is the gap intuitionism alone fills, and which proverbial speech, by its compressed nature, tends to skip past.

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Theoretical framework: Grant C. Sterling. Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly, 2026. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic).