December 15

Truth is not a virtue in itself, but it is a necessary condition for all that is good.

1

There are deliberate lies, when a person knows that what he is saying is untrue but says it because it is useful to him, and there are involuntary lies, when a person does not know how to say the truth even if he wants to.

2

Only delusion needs artificial support. Truth can stand alone.

3

All good things are nothing before the good of truth; all sweet things are nothing before the sweetness of truth; the bliss of truth is immeasurably greater than any joy.

— Buddhist wisdom

4

A human being cannot always be right because a never-ending battle is taking place within him between most different and contrary pursuits, which at times grow stronger, at times weaker, and which a human being is oftentimes unable to accurately express.

5

Delusions retain their hold only for a limited time, whereas truth always stays the same as it always has been, even after all the assaults, confusions, tricks, sophisms, evasions and lies.

6

We must always learn to do, speak and think the truth. Only the one who begins learning this will understand just how far away we are from the truth.

7

Falsehood is harmful in all worldly affairs: to sell something old as if it were new, the damaged as if it were whole, to promise to pay back a loan while knowing that you will not, etc., but all such falsehoods are nothing compared to falsehoods in spiritual affairs: to claim that something is God when it is not, to assure others that something will save their souls when it will not, to claim that something is a sin and bad when it is right and good, etc. Such things constitute the main evil of falsehood.

There is not a single human being who is sinless and not a single one who is wholly truthful. The difference between people does not lie in one person’s being wholly sinless and truthful and another’s being sinful and false, but in the fact that one person is striving to become as sinless and truthful as possible, and the other is not.