Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 8 – The Essence of Lying

And this is especially to be insisted on in the early education of young people.   It should be pointed out to them with continual earnestness that the essence of lying is in deception, not in words:  a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence;  and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded;  so that no form of blinded conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived, because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance;  and, finally, according to Tennyson’s deep and trenchant line, ‘A lie which is half a truth is ever the worst of lies.’

(Ruskin)

It is wondrous how the truer we become, the more unerringly we know the ring of truth, discern whether a man be true or not, and can fasten at once upon the rising lie in word and look and dissembling act.

(The Reverend F. W. Robertson)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW