Quotes & Sayings About Hypocrisy

The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilized; it is necessary that they die. Besides I do not want to get mixed up in it. I will not do anything against them: I will limit myself to providing everything that will hasten their ruin. In time I will have their lands and will be innocent of their death.
Satisfied with his reasoning, the American goes to church where he hears the minister of the gospel repeat every day that all men are brothers, and that the Eternal Being who has made them all in like image, has given them all the duty to help one another. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Something new seems to be at work in the contemporary world - a process that is eating away the very heart of social life, not merely by putting salesmanship in place of moral virtue, but by putting everything - virtue included - on sale. — Roger Scruton

Honesty in politics is the result of strength; hypocrisy is the result of weakness. — Vladimir Lenin

To believe in God is a good thing, a right thing. But when you reinforce your belief with words you take from the Old Testament that you seek out, and interpret in the ways that suit your needs best, that is hypocrisy, — V.C. Andrews

A hypocritical businessman, whose fortune had been the misfortune of many others, told Mark Twain piously, "Before I die I intend to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I want to climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud."
"I have a better idea," suggested Twain. "Why don't you stay right at home in Boston and keep them? — Mark Twain

Good, law-abiding, value-oriented citizens are the ultimate in hypocrisy; "majority rules" and the law are exactly the same as being the biggest bully on the block with the biggest stick-it is only might that allows one group to force another to live by its code of conduct ... — William J. Murray

I think [audiences are] more aware now of the contradictions in mainstream culture, the phony piety that permeates society, the inhumane hypocrisy. — Paul Krassner

For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit. — Noam Chomsky

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling in the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed: and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. — Frederick Douglass

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Masturbation is not the happiest form of sexuality, but the most advisable for him who wants to be alone and think. I detect the aroma of this pleasant vice in most philosophers, and a happily married logicians is almost a contradiction in terms. So many sages have regarded Woman as temptress because fornication often leads to marriage, which usually leads to children, which always leads to a respectable job and pretending to believe the idiocies your neighbors believe. The hypocrisy of the sages has been to conceal their timid onanism and call it celibacy. — Robert Anton Wilson

Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they're secretly threatened by the whole concept. — Tom DeMarco

Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning. — Noam Chomsky

What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence ... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America. — Marian Wright Edelman

When you think about Puritanism, you must begin by getting rid of the slang term 'Puritanism' as applied to Victorian religious hypocrisy. This does not apply to seventeenth-century Puritanism. — Leland Ryken

The most melancholy thing about human nature, is, that a man may guide others into the path of salvation, without walking in it himself; that he may be a pilot, and yet a castaway. — Prince Augustus William Of Prussia

It's always easier to spot others' hypocrisies while missing our own. — Annette Gordon-Reed

Alcohol is evil ... until your loved one gets employed by a brewery. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

He prefers a deliberate performance that can be made to seem spontaneous. — Sherry Turkle

There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the presence of an overwhelming sincerity on the part of the disinherited, the dominant themselves are caught with no defense [ ... ] They are thrown back upon themselves for their rating. — Howard Thurman

How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself. — Victor Hugo

There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Indeed, said the monk, a mass, a matins, and vespers well rung are half-said. — Francois Rabelais

Julian spoke with the clear, unequivocal lucidity of madmen who have escaped the hypocrisy of having to abide by a reality that makes no sense. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind of people who only ask one to pretend! — Edith Wharton

[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear. — Emma Donoghue

A paradox is a storm that rains on itself. — Shannon L. Alder

Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself. — Emma Goldman

I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it. — Abraham Lincoln

The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretence or revolt, to hypocrisy or radicalism. — W.E.B. Du Bois

There's nothing more powerful in "Your Moment of Truth" than people owning their truth, their part in a situation. — Lou Bergholz

CHARTERIS [unfolding his arms in terror] No, please. Dont. As a philosopher, it's my business to tell other people the truth; but it's not their business to tell it to me. I dont like it: it hurts. — George Bernard Shaw

You begin to realize that hypocrisy is not a terrible thing when you see what overt fascism is compared to sort of covert, you know, communal politics which the Congress has never been shy of indulging in. — Arundhati Roy

It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt — Thomas Paine

Democracy is hypocrisy without limitation. — Iskander Mirza

The Bible is a record of sin, deceit, immorality of every kind, disobedience, hypocrisy and God's amazing grace and love. The heroes we admire were people just like us. They failed miserably at times, they sinned regularly, and yet they found love, acceptance, forgiveness and mercy to be the free gifts of God. His love drew them into intimate relationship with Him, empowered them to do great things, and taught them to enjoy the life that He has provided. — Joyce Meyer

When I see you, I think I wonder which face she sees when she looks into the mirror. — C. JoyBell C.

A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday. — Russell Baker

Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunningsort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I'm a professional journalist. Making up lies to fit the facts - it's what we do. — Andrew Klavan

Affronts to her reputation pierced her to the heart, though I couldn't understand why, since she had very little character left to defend. — Melika Dannese Lux

The sins after the Devil's heart are the intricacies of spiritual pride, the mazes of self-deception, and the subtle mockeries of hypocrisy where mask hides behind mask behind mask and reality is lost altogether. — Alan W. Watts

Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned. — Quintilian

I do a lot of reading of news so I can be smarter, and I do a lot of watching TV news so I can know why Americans aren't very smart. Then I can point out the hypocrisy of politicians or the media. — Lizz Winstead

While watching the current state of America, I have concluded we should welcome the truth no matter how it arrives and justice no matter who or what it affects. When we don't, we become a vessel of mendacity and hypocrisy. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

They are constantly trying to drive us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we tell it like it is and don't engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally. — Vladimir Putin

Am I capable of deceiving my friend? Julien asked himself peevishly. This being, for whom hypocrisy and an absence of all sympathy were the usual methods of protecting himself, could not bear, this time, the thought of the slightest trickiness in dealing with a man for whom he had friendly feelings. — Stendhal

The American people are fed up ... with political posturing.' True, but also an example of political posturing. — James Taranto

Armed neutrality makes it much easier to detect hypocrisy. — Criss Jami

Immorality is the word we use to describe people that are not sinning the same way we are. — Shannon L. Alder

To be modest in speaking truth is hypocrisy. TM-ST-95 — Kahlil Gibran

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. — Arthur Schopenhauer

If your reason for worshipping God is merely from a sense of moral duty, God would rather you not worship Him at all. To say that God is pleased with worship that lacks passion is to say God endorses hypocrisy. — Sam Storms

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured ... But not everyone must prove they are a citizen. — Ben Stein

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is. — Rebecca West

Excessive religiosity is killing so many religious people knowingly or unknowingly — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The 'Rise, Rebel, Resist' video is a reflection of the outrage the American people are feeling at the absurd hypocrisy, and overwhelming nonsense and balderdash plaguing Washington D.C. It uses a bit of satire and a bit of wishful thinking to form this powerful amalgam of imagery that nourishes and empowers the living art of the song. Our message is clear: Either these elected officials do their job and protect the rights and lives of ALL Americans or be prepared to face the consequences. — Otep Shamaya

Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is the son. — J.C. Ryle

The world is truly a terrible place. Every one of my generation is lost, filling the holes which are their lives with seditious and yet passionless acts of unnecessary drama. It is a world of hypocrisy and whispers, a dark mine shaft of overfed, spoiled, and thankless slaves too stupid to realize that, despite their steady stream of shallow luxuries, they are still slaves. — Jason S. Hornsby

Every man, every art, has its hypocrisy. The world is fed with little and many lies. — Romain Rolland

God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a trace remaining of human affections ... Only someone who has become slow and watertight with old age, satiated and hardened with pleasure, will go to youth and say, Renounce! ... And yet the youth renounces nothing, but sins royally for forty years. Such is the course of nature! — Knut Hamsun

He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. — George Orwell

Reagan and Bush ... made the world safe for hypocrisy. — Julia Phillips

Luther had passed many a white church in his day, heard them singing their hymns and chanting their "Amens" and seen them gather on a porch or two afterward with their lemonade and piety, but he knew if he ever showed up on their steps, starving or injured, the only response he'd get to a plea for human kindness would be the amen of a shotgun pointed in his face. — Dennis Lehane

My unlucky star had destined me to be born when there was much talk about morality and, at the same time, more murders than in any other period. There is, undoubtedly, some connection between these phenomena. I sometime ask myself whether the connection was a priori, since these babblers are cannibals from the start - or a connection a posteriori, since they inflate themselves with their moralizing to a height which becomes dangerous for others.
However that may be, I was always happy to meet a person who owed his touch of common sense and good manners to his parents and who didn't need big principles. I do not claim more for myself, and I am a man who for an entire lifetime has been moralized at to the right and the left - by teachers and superiors, by policemen and journalists, by Jews and Gentiles, by inhabitants of the Alps, of islands, and the plains, by cut-throats and aristocrats - all of whom looked as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. — Ernst Junger

O CHILDREN OF ADAM! Holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory. Strive that your deeds may be cleansed from the dust of self and hypocrisy and find favor at the court of glory; for ere long the assayers of mankind shall, in the holy presence of the Adored One, accept naught but absolute virtue and deeds of stainless purity. This is the daystar of wisdom and of divine mystery that hath shone above the horizon of the divine will. Blessed are they that turn thereunto. — Baha'u'llah

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. — Henry David Thoreau

Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better. — Sydney J. Harris

What I don't understand is how a policy against outing trumps a policy of reporting. Whenever you're reporting on hypocrisy, you're kind of 'outing' something to begin with. — Kirby Dick

He's in love with the notion of shame and he traffics the shit like a schoolground pusher, spreading it around but never personally using. — Miriam Toews

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553). — Richard Baxter

Thus 'tis with all; their chief and constant care Is to seem everything but what they are. — Oliver Goldsmith

Of course, you'll defend Jay," says Rango, He was a part of your former life, of your former values. I will never be able to alter that. I want you to think as I do."
"But Rango, you couldn't respect someone who surrendered an opinion merely to please you . It would be hypocrisy. — Anais Nin

Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. — Charlotte Bronte

The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself. — Criss Jami

You deplore what I did, but you still want to know the results of my research. — Orson Scott Card

Wasn't that what Jesus said: do what I do? He was here as an example for us to follow. Same with all prophets. Didn't the prophets tell us to be like them? That's what's wrong with Christianity. They make Jesus and the prophets into icons, take them off of earth, and put them in heaven to worship them, so they're no longer accessible. You've taken a reality and made it into a worthless idol. Christians talk about the idolatry of other religions, but when they no longer live principles and just worship the people who taught them, that's exactly what they're doing. — Daniel Suelo

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery. — Jean De La Bruyere

The first step: Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you'll be no one, nowhere - like Hadrian, like Augustus. The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy. — Marcus Aurelius

I hate a woman who offers herself because she ought to do so, and cold and dry thinks of her sewing when making love. — Ovid

Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The key to entering into the Divine Exchange is never our worthiness but always God's graciousness. Any attempt to measure or increase our worthiness will always fall short, or it will force us into the position of denial and pretend, which produces the constant perception of hypocrisy in religious people.
To switch to an "economy of grace" is a switch that is very hard for humans to make. We base almost everything in human culture on achievement, performance, accomplishment, an equal exchange value, or some kind of worthiness gauge. I call it meritocracy. Unless one personally experiences a dramatic and personal breaking of the rules of merit (forgiveness or undeserved goodness), it is almost impossible to disbelieve or operate outside of its rigid logic. This cannot happen theoretically or abstractly. It cannot happen "out there" but must be known personally "in here. — Richard Rohr

Historical tempers have cooled only slightly after the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying under oath about a sexual relationship. Many Americans still believe his actions were a threat to the very rule of law; others insist that the "offense" was more low farce than high crime, and that the zeal of Clinton's foes was partisan hypocrisy rather than constitutional passion. — Garrett Epps

Grace is loving people for who they are, where they are. It's loving people *before* they change, not just *after* they change. And that grace is the difference between holy and holier-than-thou. Holiness, in its purest form, is irresistible. That's why sinners couldn't be kept away from Jesus. Hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It's as repulsive to the irreligious as the Pharisees' religiosity was to Jesus. — Mark Batterson

The only way you can ever accuse a Conservative of hypocrisy is if they walk past a homeless person without kicking him in the face. — Jeremy Hardy

Don't pound your chest when it's all good, then blame God when it's all bad. — T.F. Hodge

That is why diplomats smile: it is not hypocrisy - it is a sort of metaphysical awareness of the human impossibility of their task. — Charles Malik

We are moved by self-interest, even when we seek to do good to others. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I've never seen an exploding helicopter. I've never seen anybody go and blow somebody's head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I've seen people withdraw, I've seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I've myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It's gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems. — John Cassavetes

To me, my husband was my son's murderer. He was also my daughter's molester. A parasite nibbling on the Holy Book, he was Lucifer, holding me by the throat and driving me to sin every night. He was Bhai's destroyer, Amma Sain's tormentor, Ma's humbler and the people's exploiter. He was the rapist of orphans and the fiend that fed on the weak. But over and above all this, he was known to be the man closest to Allah, the one who could reach Him and save us. — Tehmina Durrani

Of all things in the world that stink in the nostrils of men, hypocrisy is the worst. — Charles Spurgeon

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

God in His sovereign goodness often uses the painful and at times debilitating injury of a spear thrower to make us readier for His service ... One thing you discover about spear throwers is that though it's not necessary for them to be good, it's essential for them to appear good. — Erwin W. Lutzer

A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what's being said is the party line. — Colin Quinn

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. — Virginia Woolf

Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy. — Remy De Gourmont

But I am scared. Everybody's scared."
"You know what I mean, like scared scared. Like coward scared, like if you never went to begin with. But with everything you've done nobody's going to doubt you." Then she made a somewhat frantic speech about a website she found that listed how certain people had avoided Vietnam. Cheney, Four education deferments, then a hardship 3-A. Limbaugh,4-F thanks to a cyst on his ass. Pat Buchanan, 4-F. Newt Gingrich, grad school deferment. Karl Rove, did not serve. Bill O'Reilly, did not serve. John Ashcroft, did not serve. Bush, AWOL from the Air National Guard, with a check mark in the "do not volunteer" box as to service overseas.
"You see where I'm going with this?'
"Well, yeah."
"I'm just saying, those people want a war so bad, they can fight it themselves. Billy Lynn's done his part. — Ben Fountain

The work of the poet has always been to shine a bright light on the absurdities of society, challenging hypocrisy and greed, and presenting the tools of change. (Donovan) — Yoko Ono

Hypocrisy is a quality found in others. I am an optimist. I believe that saying the right thing will eventually cause people to do the right thing for me. — Bauvard