Insincere story of sincere

I heard one of my heroes in the field of self-improvement tell this insincere story of sincere:

The etymology of sincere is that the word comes from the Latin sine cera (without wax). It derives from the fact the the Romans loved marble statues. These were very difficult to sculpt without breakage. So the typical sculptor would re-attach broken parts (limbs and so on) with wax (cera) and cover it up so the wax would not be seen.

However, the best stores would only sell the best statues, the ones which were whole and unbroken. They had a huge sign above the store saying: “Sine Cera,” without wax.

In the same way when you are sincere you have integrity and you are whole.

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Beautiful teaching story. The only problem is that it is not true. In fact the person saying this story was not sincere at this time. Why do I say this because he was a best selling author and public speaker. He had the resources to check his story and discover that it was not true. Even in those pre-Internet days this self-improvement guru had the resources to send an assistant to the nearest dictionary and discover the true etymology of sincere.

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