Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, none knew so well as I: for he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
You can only be called a hypocrite if you judge others first
—Indian Proverb
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
There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of can’t and hypocrisy
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
For every man’s nature is concealed with many folds of disguise, and covered as it were with various veils. His brows, his eyes, and very often his countenance, are deceitful, and his speech is most commonly a lie.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
As witnesses not of our intentions but of our conduct, we can be true or false, and the hypocrite’s crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Hypocrisy: a lie in action – the legacy of indecency
—Indian Proverb
Never to talk to ones self is a form of hypocrisy.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one’s reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
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
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are The plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
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
How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people’s emotions were!—much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One’s own soul, and the passions of one’s friends—those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had be gone to his aunt’s, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that!
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
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
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
To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles—desire, possession, love, dream, adventure—worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us—giving, conquering, uniting—will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the ‘division’ of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
Early in life, I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance, and have seen no occasion to change.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Better to be known as a sinner than a hypocrite.
—Common Proverb
He (Thomas Paine) saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar; venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
Hypocrisy is folly.—It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of what he is not.
—Richard Cecil
Saying is one thing, doing another. We must consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
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