The "Best" Lies...

I thought I stole this from a wise old adage, but I can't find the saying, so I guess it's possible that this is a new adage (though, I think, a saying must be old in order to qualify for adage-ness). I tweeted it the other day.

The most heinous lies are woven with the fabric of partial truth. This is why hypocrisy among the saints conveys such a damaging message.

(I was going to say "damning message," but I have enough followers on Twitter that I thought I'd run the risk of ruining the message of the tweet by using what would likely be deemed a curse word by some, so I didn't. In this context, however, "damning" wouldn't qualify as an expletive.)

I want to say "adage" a couple of more times in the post, so... I think that the phrase might qualify for "adage" if I'd used the bad word and left off the second sentence. Nobody remembers a long adage. But the point I wanted to make was actually the second sentence.

Speaking of remembering, I did find an old saying about lies, and smiled when I read it. Abe Lincoln was a pretty smart man: "No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar." Maybe that's why we think partial truth helps.

Posted in: Truth