To tell the truth

I’ve found the time to contemplate
What’s false and what is true.
To tell the truth is what you’re taught
By your mother raising you.

The truth is underpinned by fact
So in truth, reality,
But who can judge then what is real
And what’s illusory?

Home truths have little homeliness
Half truths are hardly true
As half a truth is no truth at all
I will not lie to you.

The truth we know and in truth we trust
But lies, damned lies we find
That little white ones we will permit
When we are trying to be kind.