Truth generally is kindness, but where the two diverge or collide, kindness should override truth. Falsehood i Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so. _De minimis non curat veritas_. Yes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a minimum and sometimes it is the other way. ii Lying is like borrowing or appropriating in music. It is only a good, sound, truthful person who can lie to any good purpose; if a man is not habitually truthful his very lies will be false to him and betray him. The converse also is true; if a man is not a good, sound, honest, capable liar there is no truth in him. iii Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. iv I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. v A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget. vi Cursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a little draughty. vii He who knows not how to wink knows not how to see; and he who knows not how to lie knows not how to speak the truth. So he who cannot suppress his opinions cannot express them. viii There can no more be a true statement without falsehood distributed through it, than a note on a well-tuned piano that is not intentionally and deliberately put out of tune to some extent in order to have the piano in the most perfect possible tune. Any perfection of tune as regards one key can only be got at the expense of all the rest. ix Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him. x I seem to see lies crowding and crushing at a narrow gate and working their way in along with truths into the domain of history. Nature’s Double Falsehood That one great lie she told about the earth being flat when she knew it was round all the time! And again how she stuck to it that the sun went round us when it was we who were going round the sun! This double falsehood has irretrievably ruined my confidence in her. There is no lie which she will not tell and stick to like a Gladstonian. How plausibly she told her tale, and how many ages was it before she was so much as suspected! And then when things did begin to look bad for her, how she brazened it out, and what a desperate business it was to bring her shifts and prevarications to book! Convenience i We wonder at its being as hard often to discover convenience as it is to discover truth. But surely convenience is truth. ii The use of truth is like the use of words; both truth and words depend greatly upon custom. iii