CREDIBILITY

There is one cardinal principle which must always be remembered: one must never make a show of false emotions to one's men.  The ordinary soldier has a surprisingly good nose for what is true and what is false.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

There is a tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: "I wish you would explain to me something." "Well, what is it? I don't know that I can explain anything to a preacher." "What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all." Macready's answer was this: "This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction." 

G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching, p. 36.