Making Sense | Sam Harris

To not lie is a negative injunction, and it takes no energy to accomplish. To tell the whole truth, however, is a positive injunction—requiring an endless effort at communication.

By lying, we deny our friends access to reality9—and their resulting ignorance often harms them in ways we did not anticipate.

What we condemn most in another person is the conscious intention to do harm.

Although difficult in practice, this handy little tool—telling the truth—is amazingly within our reach. Anyone can wake up on any given day and decide, “Today I won’t lie about anything.” And in doing so, not just change their individual lives for the better, but maybe even change the world.

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—about how they appear, their reputations, or their prospects in the world.