Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying, otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught, once caught, you can never again be, in the eyes of the pure and the good, what you were before.Many a young person has injured himself permenently throuth a single clumsy and ill-finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary. Still, while I can't go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, precision which alone make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail - these are the requirments. These, in time ,will make the student perfect. Upon these, and upon these only, mayhe rely as the sure foundation for future eminence.
Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, and experience ,went to the equipment of the peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world with the lofty and sounding maxim that "Truth is mighty and will prevail."- The most majestic compound feature of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved.
For the history of our race and every individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. There is in Bostain a monument of the man who discover the anesthesia. Many people are aware, in these later days, that he didn't discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man. Is the truth mighty, and will it prevail? No, My hearers, the monument is made of hard materials, but the lie it tells will outlast a millon years. An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid. Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it.現(xiàn)在來(lái)談一談?wù)f謊。你們可要特別謹(jǐn)慎地看待說(shuō)謊；否則十有八九會(huì)被揭穿。一旦被揭穿，在善良和淳樸的人們眼中，你就再也不可能是以前的你了。許多年輕人，僅僅由于一次拙劣難圓的謊言，由于不完備的教育而導(dǎo)致輕率的后果-而使自己長(zhǎng)期蒙受損失。一些權(quán)威人士認(rèn)為年輕人根本不該說(shuō)謊。當(dāng)然，這種說(shuō)法言之過(guò)甚，其實(shí)未必如此。不過(guò)，雖然我不能把話講的太過(guò)分，我卻堅(jiān)信-我認(rèn)為確乎如此，在實(shí)踐和閱歷使人獲得信心，文雅，嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)之前，年輕人運(yùn)用這門(mén)偉大的藝術(shù)時(shí)應(yīng)當(dāng)把握好分寸，因?yàn)橹挥羞@三點(diǎn)才能使說(shuō)謊的本領(lǐng)無(wú)傷大雅甚至帶來(lái)益處。耐心，勤奮，細(xì)致入微則是必備素質(zhì)，經(jīng)年累月，這些素質(zhì)便會(huì)使學(xué)生變得完善起來(lái)。憑借這些，也只有憑借這些，他才可能為將來(lái)的出類(lèi)拔萃打下牢固的基礎(chǔ)。
試想，要經(jīng)過(guò)學(xué)習(xí)，思考，實(shí)踐，經(jīng)驗(yàn)等多么漫長(zhǎng)的歲月，那舉世無(wú)雙的大師才具備如此的素養(yǎng)，他使得整個(gè)世界接受了“真理是強(qiáng)大的，并且終將戰(zhàn)勝一切”這句崇高而響徹云霄的格言，這是關(guān)于事實(shí)的復(fù)雜性所道出的最豪邁的一句話，至今任何一個(gè)出自娘胎的人都未有此成就。
原因是我們?nèi)祟?lèi)的歷史以及每個(gè)人的經(jīng)歷都深深地印證了這樣的事實(shí):一個(gè)真理不難抹殺，一個(gè)說(shuō)的巧妙的謊言則經(jīng)久不衰。在波士頓，人們?yōu)榧o(jì)念發(fā)現(xiàn)麻醉法的人而立了一座紀(jì)念碑：很多人到近期才知道,那個(gè)人根本沒(méi)有發(fā)現(xiàn)麻醉法，而是竊取了另一個(gè)人的發(fā)現(xiàn)。這個(gè)真理強(qiáng)大嗎？它終會(huì)取勝嗎？唉，非也，聽(tīng)眾們，雖然紀(jì)念碑是用堅(jiān)硬的材料建造的，而它所散布的謊言卻將比它持久百萬(wàn)年。你們應(yīng)該不斷研究如果避免制造那些拙劣，無(wú)力而又破綻百出的謊言；諸如此類(lèi)的謊言比起一個(gè)普通事實(shí)來(lái)，決不具有更加真實(shí)的永久性。嗨，你們倒不如既講真話又同真理打交道。
