Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one's own expressed moral rules and principles.

• And the veil
  Spun from the cobweb fashion of the times,
  To hide the feeling heart?
  • Mark Akenside, Pleasures of Imagination (published 1744), Book II, line 147.

• 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, ch. 2 of On Revolution (1963).

• Fear neither the Pharisees nor the non-Pharisees, but the hypocrites who ape the Pharisees: because their deeds are the deeds of Zimri but they expect a reward like Phineas.
  • Alexander Jannaeus, Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 22b

• A musician would not willingly consent that his lyre should be out of tune, nor a leader of a chorus that his chorus should not sing in the strictest possible harmony; but shall each individual person be at variance with himself, and shall he exhibit a life not at all in agreement with his words?
  • Basil of Caesarea, On Greek Literature, Loeb Classical Library, volume 270, p. 401.

• He that puts on a religious habit abroad to gain himself a great name among men, and at the same time lives like an atheist at home, shall at the last be uncovered by God and presented before all the world for a most outrageous hypocrite.
  • Thomas Brooks, The Privie Key of Heaven (1665).

• Saint abroad, and a devil at home.
  • John Bunyan, Pilgrims Progress (1678), Part I.

• 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” (1806), Poetical Works, Volume 1

• 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, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto X, Stanza 34.

• Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
  Not what you seem but always what you see.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XI, Stanza 86.

• 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, Book 1, Chapter 1.

• And prate and preach about what others prove,
  As if the world and they were hand and glove.
  • William Cowper, Table Talk (1782), line 173.

• Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series, Complete Works (1883), vol. 2, p. 194

• People who are stupid, unscrupulous, or hypocritical, think that others are just the same. And — this is the real pity — they treat them as if they were.
  • Josemaría Escrivá Furrow #551

• Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.
  • Ezekiel 33:31 NIV

• 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 (1642), The Hypocrite. Maxim 1, Book V, Chapter VIII.

• Piety is not an end but a means to attain ... the highest degree of culture. This is why ... those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections, Elisabeth Stopp, trans. (Penguin: 1998) #519

• 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, The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter 20.

• The hypocrisy of priests has been a butt for ridicule in all ages; but I am not sure that there has not been more wit than philosophy in it. A priest, it is true, is obliged to affect a greater degree of sanctity than ordinary men, and probably more than he possesses; and this is so far, I am willing to allow, hypocrisy and solemn grimace. But I cannot admit, that though he may exaggerate, or even make an ostentatious display of religion and virtue through habit and spiritual pride, that this is a proof he has not these sentiments in his heart, or that his whole behaviour is the mere acting of a part. His character, his motives, are not altogether pure and sincere: are they therefore all false and hollow? No such thing. It is contrary to all our observation and experience so to interpret it. We all wear some disguise -- make some professions -- use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may endeavour to keep some others that we think less to our credit as much as possible in the background:--why then should we not extend the same favourable construction to monks and priests, who may be sometimes caught tripping as well as other men
  • William Hazlitt, "On Cant and Hypocrisy", London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828)

• There is a principle, supposed to prevail among many, which is utterly incompatible with all virtue or moral sentiment; and as it can proceed from nothing but the most depraved disposition, so in its turn it tends still further to encourage that depravity. This principle is, that all benevolence is mere hypocrisy, friendship a cheat, public spirit a farce, fidelity a snare to procure trust and confidence; and that while all of us, at bottom, pursue only our private interest, we wear these fair disguises, in order to put others off their guard, and expose them the more to our wiles and machinations.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), Appendix 2

• These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
  • Isaiah 29:13 NIV

• 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, The Rambler, No. 20 (May 26, 1750).

• Sir Joshua having also observed, that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements, Johnson added, “Yes, Sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.”
  • Samuel Johnson in Dr. Johnson’s Table Talk (London: 1807), p. 30.

• We reject the pharisaical sanctity, which is but a covering of shame, under which sin has free play.
  • Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge, Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 7

• 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 Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Of Men, Chapter XI.

• L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu.
  • Hypocrisy is the homage which vice renders to virtue.
  • Alternate translation: Hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.
    • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes (1665–1678), 218.

• A on his lips and not-A in his heart.
  • Georg Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, R. J. Hollingdale trans. (2000), E95.

• Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for order and pleasure.
  • Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer (1990). New York: Knopf, p. 55.

• You never come right out and admit you have stretched the rules for your own benefit. You do it and shut up about it, and hope you don't get caught, because if you are caught no one—or no one who has any sense—will come forward and say he has done the same thing himself.
  • Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer (1990). New York: Knopf, p. 55.

• 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.
  • Matthew 23:25 NIV.

• For neither man nor angel can discern
  Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
  Invisible, except to God alone,
  By his permissive will, through heav'n and earth.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book III, line 682.

• Many young whites had suddenly discovered hypocrisy; their fathers and forefathers had written and talked brotherhood and democracy while practicing greed, imperialism, and racism. While speaking of the rights of mankind and equality for all, of "free enterprise," the "profit system," "individualism," and "healthy competition," they had plundered the wealth of the world and enslaved Blacks in the United States. White youths now saw through this hypocrisy and were trying to bring about changes through traditional electoral politics. But reality is impervious to idealism. These youngsters were discovering what Blacks knew in their bones— that the military-industrial complex was practically invincible and had in fact created a police state, which rendered idealism powerless to change anything.
  • Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 82

• Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor.
  • I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.20.

• When writers with the reputation of intelligent and perceptive critics of human life teach us, day in and day out, that vileness is distinguishable from decency only in respect of being less hypocritical, … it is small wonder that ordinary people come to disbelieve in any objective principles by appeal to which one form of conduct can be regarded as morally better than another.
  • R. W. K. Paterson, The New Patricians (1998), p. 34

• Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.
  • 1 Peter 2:1-2 NIV

• He was a man
  Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
  To serve the Devil in.
  • Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Book VIII, line 616.

• In sermon style he bought,
  And sold, and lied; and salutations made
  In Scripture terms. He prayed by quantity,
  And with his repetitions long and loud,
  All knees were weary.
  • Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Book VIII, line 628.

• Constant at Church and 'Change; his gains were sure;
  His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 347.

• To condemn your sin in another is hypocrisy. Not to condemn is to reserve your right to sin.
  • James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001), #196

• Thou hast prevaricated with thy friend,
  By underhand contrivances undone me:
  And while my open nature trusted in thee,
  Thou hast slept in between me and my hopes,
  And ravish'd from me all my soul held dear.
  Thou hast betray'd me.
  • Nicholas Rowe, Lady Jane Grey (1715), Act II, scene 1, line 235.

• It is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy.
  • Seneca, On Tranquility of the Mind

• 'Tis too much proved—that with devotion's visage
  And pious action we do sugar o'er
  The devil himself.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 1, line 47.

• I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
  My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 414.

• Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
  False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 7, line 81.

• O, what may man within him hide,
  Though angel on the outward side!
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act III, scene 2, line 285.

• But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
  Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
  And thus I clothe my naked villainy
  With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
  And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, Scene 3

• So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,
  * * * * * *
  He liv'd from all attainder of suspect.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 5, line 29.

• O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
  Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act III, scene 2, line 73.

• Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites,
  Without a hope, a passion or a love,
  Who through a life of luxury and lies
  Have crept by flattery to the seats of power,
  Support the system whence their honors flow.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Part IV.

• How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite.
  • Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique portatif ("A Philosophical Dictionary") (1764), Philosopher, Section I.

• 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, Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act II.

• A man I knew who lived upon a smile,
  And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair,
  While rankest venom foam'd through every vein.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 336.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 383-84.

• Thus 'tis with all; their chief and constant care
  Is to seem everything but what they are.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, Epilogue to The Sisters, line 25.

• Some hypocrites and seeming mortified men, that held down their heads, were like the little images that they place in the very bowing of the vaults of churches, that look as if they held up the church, but are but puppets.
  • Attributed to Dr. Laud by Bacon, Apothegms, No. 273.

• Not he who scorns the Saviour's yoke
  Should wear his cross upon the heart.
  • Friedrich Schiller, The Fight with the Dragon, Stanza 24.

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Woe unto thee if after all thy profession thou shouldst be found under the power of ignorance, lost in formality, drowned in earthly-mindedness, envenomed with malice, exalted in an opinion of thine own righteousness, leavened with hypocrisy and carnal ends in God's service.
  • Joseph Alleine, p. 336.

• Hypocrites do the devil's drudgery in Christ's livery.
  • Matthew Henry, p. 336.

• 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, p. 335.

• If you think that you can sin, and then by cries avert the consequences of sin, you insult God's character.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 336.

• Men turn their faces to hell, and hope to get to heaven; why don't they walk into the horsepond, and hope to be dry?
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 336.