April 7, 2025

What is truth? We must adopt a pragmatic definition: it is what is believed to be true. A lie that is put across therefore becomes the truth and may be justified. The difficulty is to keep up lying…it is simpler to tell the truth and if a sufficient emergency arises, to tell one big, thumping lie that will then be believed.

Memorandum on the maintenance of British civilian morale (1939), The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.148

What white lies have you told recently? What is the biggest thumping lie you have ever told over the course of your career? Was it worth it? Were you found out? By whom? Were there consequences?

Note the date of this quotation—the start of the second world war. I suppose that any government (and the politicians who direct it) can be forgiven a big thumping lie at some point in a war for national survival.