英語經(jīng)典美文誦讀100篇：031.on lying

[00:03.12]031. On Lying [00:12.11]Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying; [00:17.93]otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be, [00:24.22]in the eyes of the good and the pure, what you were before. [00:28.93]Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill-finished lie, [00:36.19]the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. [00:44.53]That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; [00:49.53]still, while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, [00:57.97]that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice [01:03.12]and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, [01:07.29]and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. [01:13.77]Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail - these are the requirements; [01:21.86]these, in time, will make the student perfect; upon these, and upon these only, [01:29.06]may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. [01:34.84]Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, [01:40.86]went to the equipment of that peerless old master [01:45.49]who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that [01:51.04]“truth is mighty and will prevail” - the most majestic compound feature of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. [02:03.91]For the history of our race, and each individual’s experience, [02:08.69]are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. [02:17.47]There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia; [02:22.30]many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didn’t discover it at all, [02:28.88]but stole the discovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? [02:36.67]Ah no, my hearers, the monument is made of hard material, but the lie it tells will outlast a million years. [02:47.47]An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid; [02:55.49]such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. [03:00.78]Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it.

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