I hate being lied to.

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So tell me what I see
When I look in your eyes –
Is that you, baby
Or just a brilliant disguise?
– Bruce Springsteen

I’m not upset that you lied to me; I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. – Friedrich Nietzsche  

A lie poisons a relationship. A lie says that someone did not believe you were worthy of the truth. A lie makes you wonder and doubt forever.

A lie steals time and trust from you. It is possible to get past the insult, but never the betrayal.

A writer named Jonathan Wallace wrote the following as part of a philosophical essay. Most of it is too esoteric, but here are the excerpts that matter:

I hate being lied to. Short of violence, it is the worst thing you can do to me. Not because of God, or the Ten Commandments, or any universal moral precepts. The reason that I hate lies is because I wish to navigate carefully through life. And to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me you know your position, but you have given me false data which obscures mine.

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Lying is theft. When you tell me something which I take to be true and as a result I invest my time, or my money, or my care, you have stolen these things from me because you obtained them with false information.

Lying creates inequality. Since you also do not like being lied to – I have never known anyone who wanted to be deceived – you have acted as if there were two classes of humans. You, with the right to lie; and everyone else, who must be truthful so that you too will not lose your way.

Lying treats people as means to the end you wish to accomplish, and not as ends in themselves.

Nothing hurts more than being lied to by someone you should have been able to trust.

God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he’s sure of
– Bruce Springsteen