Honesty & Friendship

• We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us.  But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.  ~Tad Williams

• The truth needs so little rehearsal.  ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

• One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.  ~Mark Twain

• I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle.  Washington could not lie.  I can lie, but I won't.  ~Mark Twain

• If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.  ~Mark Twain

• A half truth is a whole lie.  ~Yiddish Proverb

• No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.  ~Abraham Lincoln

• Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.  ~Austin O'Malley

• The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.  ~Aristotle

• The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.  ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

• With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back.  ~Russian proverb

• The hardest tumble a man can make is to trip over his own lies.  ~Ambrose Bierce

• When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.  ~Bill Copeland

• A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.  ~Edgar J. Mohn

• Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.  ~Mark Twain

• A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.  ~Author Unknown

• Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.  ~Thomas Jefferson

• The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always.  ~R.D. Laing

• The truth is more important than the facts.  ~Frank Lloyd Wright

• Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited.  ~James Cardinal Gibbons

• It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society.  When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. 
  ~Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

• Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.  ~Emily Dickinson

• The truth is the only thing worth having, and, in a civilized life, like ours, where so many risks are removed, facing it is almost the only courageous thing left to do.  ~E.V. Lucas

Have you ever tried to base a real, intimate friendship on lies? I have... many times and every one of them has fallen apart. Lies just don't work when the goal is to grow closer to someone; whether that someone is a prospective mate or just a close friend, we don't grow close by putting walls between us.

That's why I don't have a lot of people that I call 'friend'. I could count them on one hand, as a matter of fact, because I don't call someone my friend unless I feel that I can be honest with them. Of course, that comes with a measure of responsibility as well. When a friend tells me something about him or her self I need to be very careful not to come over as judging them in any way. Jesus gave us a very good example when he was dealing with a woman caught in adultery. He told the crowd that was ready to stone her that the person who was without sin should throw the first stone. One by one, the crowd walked away... knowing that they were as guilty, in their own way, as the woman they wanted to punish.

Ironically, the only person there who was QUALIFIED to throw the first stone was Jesus, but instead, he looked at the woman after the crowd had gone and asked her, "Woman, where are your accusers?" When she told him that they had gone away, he said something like, "I don't condemn you either, go on with your life and stay out of trouble".

I've been on both ends of that little lesson. I've been the one who desperately wanted to cover up the thing I needed to be honest about and I've been in the crowd too... judging and condemning people as though I was somehow better than they. Sometimes I've handled it right and sometimes I've fubar'd it and have to spend the rest of my life regretting it.

The first and last quotes up there, are in those positions intentionally. They are the basis of an apology.

To my friends who I have lied to, because I was afraid that you would reject me... I'm sorry. I'm going to try and be courageous enough to speak the truth and try to draw us closer together instead of pushing us apart.

To those who I have judged unfairly... I can only say that I'm sorry. I'm trying to remember that I'm no better and no worse than you are.

We're all in this together...

~Peace