"On the Decay of the Art of Lying" is a short essay written by
Mark Twain in 1880 for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of
Hartford, Connecticut. Twain published the text in ''The Stolen White Elephant Etc.'' (1882).
[Twain, Mark. ''Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays, 1852-1890.'' Ed. by Louis J. Budd. New York: Library of America, 1992. 1020.]
In the essay, Twain laments the four ways in which men of America's
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
employ man's 'most faithful friend'. He concludes by insisting that:
"the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling."
The essay, Twain notes, was "offered for the thirty-dollar prize," but it "did not take the prize."
See also
* "
The Decay of Lying "The Decay of Lying – An Observation" is an essay by Oscar Wilde included in his collection of essays titled ''Intentions'', published in 1891. This is a significantly revised version of the article that first appeared in the January 1889 issue ...
" by Oscar Wilde, 1891.
* "
On Bullshit
''On Bullshit'' is a 2005 book (originally a 1986 essay) by American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt which presents a theory of bullshit that defines the concept and analyzes the applications of bullshit in the context of communication. Frankfurt ...
" by Harry Frankfurt, 1986 (2005).
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying
Essays by Mark Twain
1880 works