quotations about hypocrisy
We are all hypocrites. We cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others.
JOSé EMILIO PACHECO
Battle in the Desert & Other Stories
Perhaps, there is not a more effectual key to the discovery of hypocrisy than a censorious temper. The man possessed of real virtue knows the difficulty of attaining it; and is, of course, more inclined to pity others, who happen to fail in the pursuit. The hypocrite, on the other hand, having never trod the thorny path, is less induced to pity those who desert it for the flowery one. He exposes the unhappy victim without compunction, and even with a kind of triumph; not considering that vice is the proper object of compassion; or that propensity to censure is almost a worse quality than any it can expose.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
"On Hypocrisy", Essays on Men and Manners
Hypocrisy is a permission slip to our morals, telling them to take a holiday.
F. H. BUCKLEY
The Morality of Laughter
Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.
CHARLES SPURGEON
attributed, The Communication Catalyst
There never was a hypocrite so disguised, but he had yet some mark or other to be known by.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Rambler, May 26, 1750
Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear.
LORD BYRON
"The Tear", Poetical Works
Of what benefit is it to say our prayers regularly, go to church, receive the sacraments, and maybe go to confessions too; ay, feast the priest, and give alms to the poor, and yet lie, swear, curse, be drunk, covetous, unclean, proud, revengeful, vain and idle at the same time?
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Hypocrisy is folly; for it is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man seems to appear, than to keep up the appearance of being what he is not.
LORD BURLEIGH
attributed, Day's Collacon
I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, Dec. 3, 1964
A hypocrite is like an unprincipled and designing lawyer, who professes to be the particular friend and advocate of virtue, justice, liberty, and humanity, while he exerts his skill and talents to excite and harden vice, defeat justice, and to rivet the shackles of tyranny and oppression upon his fellow men.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
When he fasts he assumes a sorrowful air, and a disfigured face; and is grieved for sin as much as the bulrush when it hangs the head. When he is in religious company, he talks of his experience, the plagues of his heart, and complains of the great decay of religion in the day.--He is a most uncharitable censurer of others, while he practices far greater villainies himself.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"The Character of a Hypocrite", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a Vizor and a Face.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age
All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best.
O. HENRY
unfinished letter to Mr. Steger, 1909
For a devil, hypocrisy is a parlour game, like charades. Such fun, and when the evening is done we shall be holding our bellies to keep from dying of laughter.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
There is not one word of final hope for a hypocrite, in the whole history of divine revelation: But on the contrary, the severest denunciations are recorded against them.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
Railing on the churches for hypocrisy is a sure case of the pot calling the kettle black. My final question to you is this: Is it better to have principles and sometimes fail to live up to them, or would it be better to go through life having no principles at all, and be one hundred percent successful at it? As for me, I'll continue to try to live by high principles, at the risk of being a hypocrite from time to time.
JON GARATE
I Hurt, Therefore I Am
We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Heretics
Hypocrisy is a spiritual pollution. In its theological consideration it implies a counterfeiting religion and virtue: an affectation of the name joined with a disaffection to the thing.
WILLIAM BATES
The Whole Works of the Rev. W. Bates
Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion