quotations about hypocrisy
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
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
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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
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
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
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
Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The Rambler, May 26, 1750
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
Hypocrisy is a permission slip to our morals, telling them to take a holiday.
F. H. BUCKLEY
The Morality of Laughter
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
A hypocrite is in himself both the archer and the mark, in all actions shooting at his own praise or profit.
THOMAS FULLER
The Holy State and the Profane State
The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.
ANDRE GIDE
Autumn Leaves
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
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
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
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
We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Heretics
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