Mind of Jacka: ​Philosophers Comment on Internal Auditing

René Descartes: I think, therefore I test.

Voltaire: If internal audit dd not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living. And, come to think of it, maybe you should also take a second look at that pile of shredded credit card receipts.

Martin Heidegger: The human essence can only fully comprehend the meaning of its life when faced with the certainty of its death, or a final report’s impending deadline.

Bertrand Russell: I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. However, I truly believe you have the worst controls I’ve ever seen.

Thomas Hobbes: Leisure is the mother of philosophy, and the father of an opportunity to study for the CIA.

St. Augustine: We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone. Time for more testing.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Hell is other people’s workpapers.

Epicurus: The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Now, get that report done.

Plato: The human soul is a charioteer trying to drive, simultaneously, one bad horse and one noble one. Unfortunately, our random sample picked the bad one.

René Descartes: One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one fraudster or another.

Martin Heidegger: He who thinks great thoughts often makes great errors. Recount the inventory and get it right this time.

Socrates: The only thing I know is that I know nothing … and that your controls are abominable.

Confucius: It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Then again, that report was due last week.

And one last quote, and I swear I didn’t change a word.

William Kingdon Clifford: It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Feel free to share any philosophical quotes about internal audit you may have come across.