quotations about hypocrisy
Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry.
JULIE METZ
Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
GOD
Isaiah 29:13
Every veil secretly desires to be lifted, except the veil of Hypocrisy.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
The accomplished hypocrite does not exercise his skill upon every possible occasion for the sake of acquiring facility in the use of his instruments. In all unimportant matters, who is more just, more upright, more candid, more honourable?
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Whenever a man undergoes a considerable change, in consequence of being observed by others, whenever he assumes another gait, another language, than what he had before he thought himself observed, be advised to guard yourself against him.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Selected Essays
It is hypocrisy for man to make any other use of his religion, or the credit of it, than to sanctify and save his soul.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Maxims
If she knew me as I really am she would despise me, and certainly not aid or abet my evil designs. To veil their vices from the sight of the good is the only resource of those who are not blind and know themselves to be vicious. Thus was I confirmed in habits of hypocrisy; and these, for a time, worked only too effectually to my advantage.
WILLIAM BECKFORD
The Episodes of Vathek
The hypocrite and saint are like two men at sawing; the hypocrite, like him in the pit, looks high upward, but pulls downward; the saint, like him above, looks low, humbly downward, but pulls upward. The hypocrite is like a peach, which covers a ragged craggy stone under a velvet coat; the saint, like the chestnut, hath a sweet kernel, though the cover be rough. The hypocrite, like Judas, kisses Christ, but betrays Him, and, like ivy, he clasps about Christ, but is not united to Him; he again, like ivy, derives not sap and nourishment from Him, but from a root of his own. The hypocrite is like a window cushion, fairly wrought without, but stuffed with straw.
R. VENNING
attributed, A Cyclopedia of Illustrations of Moral and Religious Truths
To profess fairly, and practice foully in reverse of one's profession, is the very precept and example of human corruption and depravity.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.
HERBERT SPENCER
The Study of Sociology
We reject the pharisaical sanctity, which is but a covering of shame, under which sin has free play.
HERMANN FRIEDRICH KOHLBRUGGE
Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter
I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.
OVID
Metamorphoses
The formal Hypocrite is very justly compared with a Nightingale. She is more in sound than in substance, a loud and excellent voice, but a little despicable body.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Self-effacing deception is compatible with integrity, while hypocrisy is a sure sign of corruption.
RUTH W. GRANT
Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics
Hurl satire, then, as keen as pointed steel, prick through the hypocrites' robes and make the wretches feel the stings of truth.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
A hypocrite is a studied cheat--an imposter--a knave--a made fool, and one who generally finds himself the worst cheated, at last.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
It is easier to pretend to be what you are not, than to hide what you really are; he that can accomplish both, has little to learn in hypocrisy.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard III