Of Liars

There is no vice that is so destructive to society as lying. We are not men, nor have any other tie one upon another, but by our word. If we did but discover the horror and weight of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and with more justice than other crimes. I see ordinary chastisement given in every country for the fault of speaking carelessly or idly; why not equal punishment for the fault of speaking falsely?

A liar must have a good memory, lest he should contradict himself when he returns to the same subject. And here my infirmity has done me a service. My memory is so poor that I could not maintain a lie for half an hour without detection — I would contradict my own earlier version without knowing it. This defect has kept me honest, not by virtue, but by incapacity. I am a truthful man in the way that a man without legs is a non-traveller: through want of means rather than strength of principle.

“If a man be not aware of his lie, it is no great matter; but if he is, it is a most treacherous vice — one that is cowardly and servile, showing a weakness of mind that cannot support itself without a borrowed prop.”

I have often remarked that there is a difference between the man who lies to serve himself and the man who lies from habit. The first knows what he does and why; the second has grown so accustomed to invention that he no longer distinguishes clearly between what he knows and what he fabricates. The second kind is more to be pitied, perhaps, but no less to be avoided. He has allowed the faculty of honest report to atrophy, and no lie he tells is more complete than the lies he tells himself.

There is another sort of dishonesty, less remarked upon, which consists not in inventing falsehoods but in choosing, very carefully, which truths to tell. I confess I am not certain this is to be condemned absolutely — there are truths whose telling does harm without doing good — but the man who practises it should at least be honest with himself about the nature of the art he is practising.