White Lies Are the Best Policy Sometimes

“Honesty is the best policy. ” as an old saying goes. Many people believe that honesty is a necessary virtue and an honest man should always tell the truth. However, in my opinion, honesty is certainly a virtue we must have, but this doesn’ t mean that we must tell the truth all the time. Under some circumstances, “white lies” are also acceptable and may produce unexpected effect. Honesty, sometimes, is not the best policy, but white lies are.

White lies can give people confidence. For example, one just begins to learn playing the piano and his playing is bad. But some people encourage him by saying “it’ s beautiful” and the like, then he feels confident, and the confidence leads him to a piano master in the end. Obviously, the people are telling lies, but for the player it would be a great encouragement that make him practice more and harder. The white lies do good for him. Will anyone blame these people for not being honest?

White lies can comfort people. “Everything will be OK. ” This is what people often say to comfort others. Of course, it’ s impossible that everything will be satisfactory, but people are not telling this to show the reality. People are telling such words because they can bring people comfort, making them feel that there is always someone there to care about them when they are sad. White lies here play a role of comfort.

White lies can even give people chances to survive. Here is a story happened in an earthquake. Some worker were trapped under ruins. Only the leader had a watch and some water, so he decided to distribute the water once every hour. But the leader lied to workers—only when several hours passed would he announced that one hour had passed and they could have water. However, the leader’ s lies helped them hold on for several days with water only enough to support them for several hours. In this story, though the leader told lies, his white lies brought the workers chances to survive. No one would say he is dishonest.

All in all, though white lies are lies too, sometimes they are acceptable. Because when people tell white lies, they are violating the principle of honesty, but they are obeying the principle of being good. Sometimes the truth is too cruel to be told, so people tell white lies. White lies are beautiful, because when people tell white lies, they are thinking about others’ feeling, respecting and caring about them, which show that they are kind-hearted and considerate. So, sometimes, white lies are the best policy, and they reflect people’ s goodness. 

本文围绕着“人们是否应该一直讲真话”展开讨论。文章开头，作者认为虽然诚实是美德，但人们不需要时时刻刻都在讲真话，有时候“善意的谎言”才是上策，会有意想不到的作用。文章分三点进行论述，首先作者说明善意的谎言可以鼓励人们，以弹钢琴为例论证了这一点；然后又说明善意的谎言可以安抚人们的心；最后作者讲了地震中的故事，说明善意的谎言甚至可以给人们生存下来的机会。最后一段，作者点明“善意的谎言”可以反映人们关心他人的美好品质，并再次强调主旨——有时候，善意的谎言才是上策。