Washington and the cherry tree

The subject of a fanciful story by an early biographer of George Washington , Mason Weems; the source of the saying “I cannot tell a lie.” According to Weems, the young Washington received a new hatchet and used it to chop down his father's prized cherry tree. His father demanded to know how the tree had fallen. George was tempted to deny his misdeed, but then, “looking at his father with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’”

Discover More

Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

And giving parents this level of veto power would mean erasing any history but the occasional lesson about George Washington and the cherry tree.

From

Reading them the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, on the other hand, in which truthfulness is met with approval, does reduce lying, albeit to a modest degree.

From

In 2014 she and her colleagues found that children who were told classic stories about honesty, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, in which he is praised for admitting he cut it down, were more likely to confess to ignoring researcher instructions than the children who heard stories in which bad things happened to kids who lie, as in Pinocchio or “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

From

Even as a kid, I never fell for that bit about George Washington and the cherry tree.

From

Authors worried that his lack of religiosity wouldn’t play in the pious country villages where the self-made men of tomorrow were presumably to be found.16 Some, including Parson Weems, the enterprising bookseller who invented the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, simply bent the truth to their purposes.

From

Washington Washington, Booker T.

Browse