Trust everybody, but cut the cards.

The words of Finley Peter Dunne—“Trust everybody, but cut the cards.”—carry with them the playful humor of a jest, but beneath the laughter rests a pillar of wisdom. In this short phrase lies the eternal tension between faith and prudence, between generosity of spirit and the necessity of caution. Dunne reminds us that life requires both: the openness of trust, which allows friendship, fellowship, and love to blossom, and the vigilance of discernment, which protects us from folly and deceit.

To trust everybody is to live without bitterness, to offer goodwill freely, to assume that others are capable of honor. A world without trust is a wasteland of suspicion, where no bond can grow and no joy can endure. The ancients knew that trust was the mortar of civilization; without it, men remain forever divided, fearful, and hostile. To open your hand to another is to affirm that life is richer when shared. Thus, Dunne does not counsel cynicism—he teaches that trust must remain the foundation of human interaction.

But then comes the second half: cut the cards. This is the wisdom of prudence. For while trust builds bridges, caution ensures they do not collapse beneath betrayal. Cutting the cards is the act of verification, the safeguard against deception. It does not insult the dealer, but honors the game. Likewise, in life, to guard oneself with reason does not mean abandoning trust; it means ensuring that trust does not become naivety. The wise man balances faith in humanity with the sober awareness that not all men walk in honesty.

History gives us vivid examples of this balance. Consider George Washington, who trusted his generals and soldiers with the fate of the Revolution. Yet he also “cut the cards,” keeping watch against spies, ensuring discipline, and refusing to gamble recklessly with the lives entrusted to him. His trust inspired loyalty, but his prudence safeguarded the cause. Contrast this with those rulers who gave blind faith to flatterers and schemers, and who found themselves betrayed, undone not by their enemies but by their own failure to balance trust with vigilance.

The beauty of Dunne’s phrase is that it strips away extremes. He does not command us to trust nobody—for that leads to loneliness and despair. Nor does he command us to trust blindly—for that leads to ruin. Instead, he gives us the middle path, where the heart remains open, yet the mind remains sharp. This is the way of wisdom: to extend trust generously, but to keep one’s eyes clear and one’s judgment firm.

The lesson for us, children of this age, is clear. Live as one who assumes the best in others, but prepare yourself in case they falter. Give your word freely, but also set boundaries. Lend your hand, but do not leave yourself unguarded. In doing so, you preserve both joy and safety. You will not become the fool of cynicism, nor the victim of deception, but a soul that walks steadily between.

Practically, this means testing the truth of words by action, holding others accountable even as you respect them, and remembering that love itself grows stronger when it is rooted in honesty. It means keeping your eyes open in business, in friendship, in family, while still holding your heart unbarred. Do not let betrayal harden you into stone, but let vigilance keep you from being broken.

So let Dunne’s wisdom stand as an eternal reminder: “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.” Trust makes life worth living; prudence keeps it from falling apart. Trust opens the hand; caution steadies it. Together they form the art of living well, guarding both the joy of fellowship and the strength of self-preservation.