Is the "Noble Lie" Ever Noble?

"And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak? And he [the brother of Jared] answered: Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie." Ether 3:11-12

When is it ever proper to lie? The Egyptians believed "never," and quite firmly so. Though we gathered information from all manner of sources (ears, eyes, etc) we could transmit it only through speaking and writing, and oft were others required to rely on testimony for a time or forever. A lie, then, gave false information, which information was the basis for an individual's every action, which could make it impossible to act in the right manner. If those that are receiving false information through malfunctioning senses, such as those that hear voices in their heads, are insane, then lies can be said to make the hearer insane: The lie was the first step to the primordial chaos and the Logos, the true word, was the catalyst for creation.

Plato gives us the term "noble lie," which is a lie told for some good reason in an example of the belief that the ends justify the means. The noble lie is generally something very big but in principle could be a tiny thing, and many white lies probably fall into this category as a result.

Fichte remarked "I would not break my word even to save humanity." Eliezer Yudkowsky pointed out that if that were where your ethics ended, then nobody would believe you once the world were on the line. Similarly, if you lie about whether or not your wife looks fat in that dress, she can't trust your words on the matter, and will likely not trust your words on similar matters even if you do always speak truth on them. If you are not honest in all things then you are not fully honest, which means that in some situations you can't be trusted.

I am used to greasing the wheel with little white lies, and "simpler explanations" that replace the reason for a true fact with another, less wordy one (often entirely rewriting key points of my history for the sake of a shorter story, especially as I generally have to give it many times a week whenever I am eating with a new family). I can't do that anymore, "even to save humanity," or to save the feelings of a single person. I should know better than most that that doesn't help anyone, when I can be so suspicious of people that I ask outright for harsh criticism so that I know that that, at least, is true. Maybe I won't say what they want to hear, and maybe it won't be a big deal in that isolated incident, but if I want them to believe me when the truth is what they want to hear then I need to always do it. Even when the answer is "Yes, you look fat in that dress."

 I want to be able to say "I do not lie. No, not ever; that's the way that I get things done."