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By lying, we deny our friends access to reality9—and their resulting ignorance often harms them in ways we did not anticipate.
False encouragement is a kind of theft: It steals time, energy, and motivation that a person could put toward some other purpose.
When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives
Failures of personal integrity, once revealed, are rarely forgotten.
It is far more common to find ourselves in situations in which, though we are tempted to lie, honesty will lead us to form connections with people who might otherwise have been adversaries.
To lie is to erect a boundary between the truth we are living and the perception others have of us.
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.
By lying, we deny others our view of the world. And our dishonesty not only influences the choices they make, it often determines the choices they can make—in ways we cannot always predict. Every lie is an assault on the autonomy of those we lie to.
