WITHOUT

Truth without love repels, but love without truth indulges

For the man who is as brittle as a thin plane of glass, hard truth is like a brick thrown from the street—it might shatter him. While it is a strange kind of love that leaves a man in a lie, it is not love of all to gracelessly tell him a hard truth. At best it will send him scampering more deeply into the darkness of an easy lie. Truth without love repels.

But what of love without truth, where the fear of broken glass keeps one from telling a brittle man the truth? That might provide him comfort today but will do him no good tomorrow, or all the tomorrows that follow. At death, every man confronts the truth, but by then it is too late. Love without truth indulges. It is truly a strange kind of love.

Which is why candor—graciously telling the hard truth—is a virtue. It is truth with love, told not with reckless disregard for effect, but from a love that can not stand idle while a lie slowly strangles life. Truth with love is a candle in the darkness, kept alight by selfless concern for the welfare of another.

Truth without love repels, but love without truth indulges