“But
there is something in us which puts limits on such frankness, some obstacle to
this mutual outpouring of the heart, which makes one keep some part of one's
thoughts locked within oneself, even when one is most intimate. The sages of
old complained of this secret distrust - 'My dear friends, there is no such
thing as a friend!'
We
can't expect frankness of people, since everyone fears that to reveal himself
completely would be to make himself despised by others. But this lack of
frankness, this reticence, is still very different from dishonesty. What the
honest but reticent man says is true, but not the whole truth. What the
dishonest man says is something he knows to be false. Such an assertion is
called, in the theory of virtue, a lie. It may be harmless, but it is not on
that account innocent. It is a serious violation of a duty to oneself; it
subverts the dignity of humanity in our own person, and attacks the roots of
our thinking.”
Immanuel
Kant
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