Lying

But it is in believing one thing while intending to communicate another that every lie is born. (Location 82)

By lying, we deny our friends access to reality9—and their resulting ignorance often harms them in ways we did not anticipate. Our friends may act on our falsehoods, or fail to solve problems that could have been solved only on the basis of good information. Rather often, to lie is to infringe on the freedom of those we care about. (Location 183)

Note: Lying denies our friends access to reality

In many circumstances in life, false encouragement can be very costly to another person. (Location 210)

Note: False encouragement can be costly to others

False encouragement is a kind of theft: It steals time, energy, and motivation that a person could put toward some other purpose. (Location 214)

Tags: issue5

Note: Fale encouragement wastes peoples time

if we are convinced that a friend has taken a wrong turn in life, it is no sign of friendship to simply smile and wave him onward. (Location 217)

Note: We should tell a friend if they have made a false turn

If the truth itself is painful to tell, often background truths are not—and these can be communicated as well, deepening the friendship. In the examples above, the more basic truth is that you love your friends and want them to be happy, and they could make changes in their lives that might lead to greater fulfillment. In lying to them, you are not only declining to help them—you are denying them useful information and setting them up for future disappointment. Yet the temptation to lie in these circumstances can be overwhelming. (Location 218)

Note: You fundamentally want to make your friends happy

Rather than feeling grateful and protected, I felt sadness that we hadn’t come together as a family to face her illness and support each other. (Location 240)

Tags: support

Note: .support its better to face the truth so you can provide support

To agree to keep a secret is to assume a burden. At a minimum, one must remember what one is not supposed to talk about. This can be difficult and lead to clumsy attempts at deception. Unless your work requires that you keep secrets—which doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and other professional confidants do routinely—it seems worth avoiding. (Location 305)

Note: Keeping secrets is burdensome

To lie is to erect a boundary between the truth we are living and the perception others have of us. (Location 405)

Tags: lying

Note: .lying

An unhappy fact about human psychology is probably at work here, which makes it hard to abolish lies once they have escaped into the world: We seem to be predisposed to remember statements as true even after they have been disconfirmed. For instance, if a rumor spreads that a famous politician once fainted during a campaign speech, and the story is later revealed to be false, some significant percentage of people will recall it as true—even if they were first exposed to it in the very context of its debunking. In psychology, this is known as the “illusory truth effect.” (Location 436)

Tags: gossip, rumour, lies

Note: It is hard to abolish a lie once it is out in the open

Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. It is both a failure of understanding and an unwillingness to be understood. To lie is to recoil from relationship. (Location 460)

Ultimately, we all die, and the only question is, what have you done between the time you’re born and the time you die? Did you make the most of this unique opportunity? (Location 559)

Tags: mortality

Note: .mortality ultimately we are all going to die