It is said to be a universal truth that everybody lies. I once sat in the audience when a speaker asked rhetorically, “Is there anyone sitting in this room who has never told a lie?” A young girl raised her hand. Without thinking, the speaker said, “See? There’s one right there.” The girl ran from the room crying, but that’s probably another story. 
The universality of lies makes them no less loathsome. Over this past rainy weekend, I ran across this paragraph in a novel by Harlan Coben. I have personally experienced its truth, as no doubt you have too:
“But in the end he knew there was one universal truth: Lies fester. You try to put them away. You jam them in a box and bury them in the ground. But eventually they eat their way out of the coffins. They dig their way out of graves. They may sleep for years. But they always wake up. When they do, they’re rested, stronger, more insidious. Lies kill.”
A person who comes face to face with that truth in some awful way might resolve to never tell another lie. Unfortunately, that is a goal probably doomed to failure, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying (see Tom Jefferson, below). Does the truth hurt? Sometimes, sure. But as the old saying goes, “The truth may hurt for a little while, but a lie hurts forever.”
Big or small, a lie is still a lie. Avoid them. Hate them.
