29.  Indeed if a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world) if a man spent his reputation all at once, or ventured it at one throw.

30.  But if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end; all other arts will fail, but truth and integrity will carry a man through, and bear him out to the last.

31.  When Aristotle was once asked, what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods? he replied, “not to be credited when he shall tell the truth.”

The character of a lyar is at once so hateful and contemptible, that even of those who have lost their virtue it might be expected, that from the violation of truth they should be restrained by their pride.  Almost every other vice that disgraces human nature, may be kept in countenance by applause and association.

32.  The corrupter of virgin innocence sees himself envied by the men, and at least not detested by the women:  the drunkard may easily unite with beings, devoted like himself to noisy merriment or silent insensibility, who will celebrate his victories over the novices of intemperance, boast themselves the companions of his prowess, and tell with rapture of the multitudes whom unsuccessful emulation has hurried to the grave:  even the robber and the cut-throat have their followers, who admire their address and intrepidity, their stratagems of rapine, and their fidelity to the gang.

33.  The lyar, and only the lyar, is invariably and universally despised, abandoned and disowned:  he has no domestic consolations, which he can oppose to the censure of mankind; he can retire to no fraternity where his crimes may stand in the place of virtues, but is given up to the hisses of the multitude, without friend and without apologist.  It is the peculiar condition of falsehood, to be equally detested by the good and bad:  “The devils,” says Sir Thomas Brown, “do not tell lies to one another; for truth is necessary to all societies; nor can the society of hell subsist without it.”

34.  It is natural to expect, that a crime thus generally detested, should be generally avoided; at least that none should expose himself to unabated and unpitied infamy, without an adequate temptation; and that to guilt so easily detected, and so severely punished, an adequate temptation would not readily be found.

35.  Yet so it is, that in defiance of censure and contempt, truth is frequently violated; and scarcely the most vigilant unremitted circumspection will secure him that mixes with mankind, from being hourly deceived by men of whom it can scarcely be imagined, that they mean an injury to him or profit to themselves; even where the subject of conversation could not have been expected to put the passions in motion, or to have excited either hope or fear, or zeal or malignity, sufficient to induce any man to put his reputation in hazard, however little he might value it, or to overpower the love of truth, however weak might be its influence.