HYPOCRISY QUOTES
quotations about hypocrisy
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
JESUS
Matthew 23:25
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem but always what you see.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Satire was evidently designed by Heaven for the purpose of unveiling hypocrites and rendering the vile ridiculous.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
I hate that man like the very Gates of Death who says one thing but hides another in his heart.
HOMER
The Iliad
I think that generally one of the things that--one of the things that I sort of feel like is the meta issue in the type of political commentary that I do is that nobody really cares about hypocrisy--everybody expects hypocrisy from politicians. And so, you tell a politician they are being a hypocrite, and they say, oh, you have such a nasty tune, stop saying those rude things, because they don‘t care about the substance of it.
RACHEL MADDOW
The Rachel Maddow Show, Jul. 5, 2011
Hypocrisy is like this: she has a face of burnished gold and an eye of pleasing crystal, but on the inside of her heart all is of lead, flat and useless.
JOHN GOWER
Mirour de l'Omme
A hypocrite is the picture of a saint; but his paint shall be washed off, and he shall appear in his own colours.
JOHN MASON
Select Remains of the Rev. John Mason
Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Friendship," Essays
An immoral character, glossed with religious pretention, is like a rotten egg with an Easter coloring.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Measure for Measure
Hypocrisy is a condition of survival. The law of adaptation to environment, whether in the higher or lower forms of animal life, is a law dependent on flexibility. How quickly can We change? How quickly can we put away our previous selves and engender newer attitudes? Turn-coat, Volte-face, and Trimmer always survive in the struggle for existence.
BENJAMIN DE CASSERES
"The Philosophy of Hypocrisy", The International, Volumes 8-11
And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.
OSCAR WILDE
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Hypocrisy is a subtle evil, a secret illness, a hidden poison; it is an adulteration of virtue and a worm that consumes sanctity. All things hostile mount their assault with their own strength, fight with their own arms, and attack openly. They are guarded against as easily as they are seen. Hypocrisy pretends to be free of danger, feigns prosperity, deceives carefully, and in its cruel craft lops off the virtues with virtue as its sword; it kills fasting by fasting, by praying it makes praying empty, and it debases mercy by mercy. Hypocrisy, like a fever, boils up within while being cold without. What dropsy is for the body, hypocrisy is for the soul.
PETER CHRYSOLOGUS
Selected Sermons
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 the true.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Scarlet Letter
A hypocrite is one who sets good examples only when he has an audience.
ANONYMOUS
If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has; they serve him better than any others, and receive no wages.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
All his religion, at least the greatest part of it, is left behind him in the temple, or in the street; for he neither carries it to his family, nor to his closet.--He is like the rainbow, whose glorious colors are reflected from a dark vapor, only when the sun shines. Notwithstanding his ostentation, he hates the light; and refuses to come into it except when his mask is on.--He cannot endure a minister, who ranks into his conscience; nor a Christian friend, who gives him faithful admonition.--When he is reproved for any miscarriage, he says to the reprover, it is none of your business; meddle with your own matters. Were it not for his eager desire of applause from men, and the roaring of his angry conscience, he would bid adieu to all the duties of religion, whether private or public.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"The Character of a Hypocrite", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
Nothing is more revealing of an age than its hypocrisies.
JAMES LAVER
"Fashion: A Detective Story", Vogue Magazine, January 1, 1959