life on planet earth on Lying

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too. Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally,...

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And hav...

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

In their excellent book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien share the importance of recognizing the lens through which see the world: We speak as insi...

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...

Why would the apostles lie?....Liars always lie for selfish reasons. If they lied, what was their motive, what did they get out of it? What they got out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecut...

A friend who attended a prestigious MBA program once told me about the business ethics course he took there. The professor counseled honest business practices for two reasons. First, if you lie or che...

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Billy is a seven-year-old boy who loves to draw pictures. But he’s not your typical seven-year-old who likes to draw. He has an unmatched talent as an artist. The pictures he sketches are riveting. Bi...

Our race would not have gotten far, Had we not learned to bluff it out And look more certain than we are Of what our motion is about.

A priest who had spent a fruitless day fishing picked out three fat fish in the market. “Before you wrap them,” he said to the store manager,” toss them to me, one by one. That way I’ll be able to tel...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed hearing stories about the origins of certain words. One of these words is the “sincere.” While there are some questions about the history’s authenticity...

A man who is desperate for work applies to a zoo that he’s heard has some openings. “Well, it’s a little unusual, but I do have something,” said the zoo director. “Our gorilla died sometime ago, and w...

When something has gone wrong, justice needs to be done and seen to be done. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement examines exactly this same dynamic. The central character, Bryony Tallis, makes a grave mista...

Arnold “Red” Auerbach was one of the winningest coaches in NBA history. He won 9 championships as coach of the Boston Celtics and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1965 and NBA Executive Coach of the...

George Bush Sr. (41) enjoyed the game of golf, even if he wasn’t necessarily very good at it. Following his presidency and his return to private life, he began to notice something: It’s amazing how ma...

The British poet Thomas Campbell, attending a horse race with some friends, bet one of them (Thomas Wilson) £50 that the horse Yellow Cap, would come in first place. After the race ended, Campbell, th...

He wonders if he’s lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle of nowhere, and the thought hollows him.

Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be...

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How ...

Before God can divulge our God-given identities in our desert-of-the soul wilderness experiences, there is something we need to know: he requires that we be brutally honest with ourselves and with him...

It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into nothing. Murder is no better than lies if lying does the trick.

There are many ways to be a saint, and at times our fidelity may look like betrayal. We may have to become “saints of darkness.” We may have to be saints whose light seems to go out as we wander in th...

The open doors left me wanting more . . . It’s another way to win a useless fight You’ve been lying so long don’t know you’re faking.