Frasier · Season 6, Episode 15
“To Tell the Truth” · Season 6, Episode 15
In this episode: Frasier Crane (2), Martin Crane (2), Niles Crane (1)
(fears that his feelings for Daphne will be made public in court)
Tomorrow everyone will know, including Daphne. And this is how she's going to find out. I wanted to whisper it to her over a candlelight dinner, not have it read back to her by a court stenographer.
Dad, we are talking about perjury! When is that ever acceptable?
Oh, you want an example? Fine! Let's say, uh, what if there was a comet hurtling towards the earth...
Oh, for God's sake!
And you were the only person who could save the earth, but the only way to do it is by lying under oath. Would you do it then?
Who am I lying to, the comet?
Oh, just answer the question!
All right, I suppose in certain extreme cases...
So, then you'd lie?
To save mankind from a talking comet, yes!
I can't believe you're being so casual about this. You realise your asking me to do something entirely unethical?
Oh for God's sake. Nobody's even going to know!
That's the point! Ethics are what we do when no-one else is looking. For heaven's sake I learned that from you. Are you saying you wouldn't have any trouble with this?
Let me tell you something. One time when I was on the force I saw a guy shoot somebody. When we caught him I started to read him his rights. But he slipped out of his cuffs and he swung at me so I didn't have a chance to finish. Two months later, I'm on the stand and his lawyer asks me if I read him his rights in full. Now, if I say no, this guy walks. And this guy's been in and out of jail all his life; he could have read me his rights. So I say "Yes, I did, I read them in full." I lied under oath. Now you might think I did an unethical thing but there's not a doubt in my mind that I did the right thing.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Frasier pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
