Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) Swiss Poet
Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation, part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop. Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when the sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was orphan.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
Hypocrisy is homage paid by vice to virtue.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
Saint abroad and devil at home.
—John Bunyan (1628–88) English Puritan Writer, Preacher
An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.
—Michael Korda (b.1933) English-born Writer, Novelist
We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.—The charlatan is verbose and assumptive; the Pharisee is ostentatious, because he is a hypocrite.—Pride is the master sin of the devil, and the devil is the father of lies.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank… . Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Most everyone seems willing to be a fool himself, but he can’t bear to have anyone else one.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get. Where there is no ventilation fresh air is declared unwholesome. Where there is no religion hypocrisy becomes good taste. Where there is no knowledge ignorance calls itself science.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Clean your finger before you point at my spots.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The hypocrite pays tribute to God that he may impose upon man. Hypocrisy is much more eligible than open infidelity and vice, it wears the livery of religion, and is cautious of giving scandal.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be not what you seem but always what you see.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Better to be known as a sinner than a hypocrite.
—Common Proverb
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
One may smile and smile and be a villain still.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Radical, Inventor
Oh, for a forty-parson power to chant
Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh, for a hymn
Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,
Not practise!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
If (the) empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be overthrown with it, what advantages will be gained? The doctrine of human equality is founded entire
—John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Hypocrisy is oftenest clothed in the garb of religion.
—Hosea Ballou (1771–1852) American Theologian
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked, and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the individual who carries them. May it not be said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas, that they go about the streets ‘with a lie in their right hand?’ Except in a very few cases of hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature, umbrellarians, have tried again and again to become so by art, and yet have failed, have expended their patrimony in the purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet have systematically lost them, and have finally, with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain President that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside me.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation
—Indian Proverb
I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
Nothing seems to me to be rarer today then genuine hypocrisy. I greatly suspect that this plant finds the mild atmosphere of our culture unendurable. Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief one already has.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
If the world despises hypocrites, what must be the estimate of them in heaven?
—Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiere (1734–93) French Statesman
Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
We are companions in hypocrisy.
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920) American Novelist, Critic.
Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions – and unwanted children living in misery
—Indian Proverb
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
—Jean Kerr (1922–2003) Irish-American Author, Playwright