quotations about hypocrisy
Saint abroad, and a devil at home.
JOHN BUNYAN
Pilgrims Progress
Hypocrisy is a proud desire to appear better than you are. Be thoroughly humbled and vile in your own eyes, and hypocrisy is done.
RICHARD BAXTER
Christian Ethics
The avowed infidel, stands open to view, as he is, and if you choose you can shun him: But a hypocrite is like a rock covered over with smooth water, which sweeps the unsuspicious mariner to destruction, at a moment when he apprehends no danger; like a false friend, who flatters you with smiles and fair professions, while he meditates your ruin; like a snake in the grass, which darts its deadly poison, before it is heeded; like a pirate, who approaches the defenseless merchantman, under a friendly, or "patriot" flag, or perhaps draws him within the reach of his guns, by false signals of distress, and then commits plunder and murder; or like a swindler, who gains possession of the public, or individual's confidence and property, by false and deceitful representations, and management, and then endeavors to evade pursuit, or otherwise to keep them from repossessing their property.
ABLE BREWSTER
Free Man's Companion
The hypocrite sounds a trumpet before his alms, and chooses the corner of the streets for his prayers. To him virtue in the dark is almost a vice, he can never detect any beauty in virtue, unless she has a thousand eyes to look upon her, and then she is something indeed.
CHARLES H. SPURGEON
The Spurgeon Series: 1859 & 1860
Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.
CHARLES SPURGEON
attributed, The Communication Catalyst
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
The wolf in sheep's clothing is a fitting emblem of the hypocrite. Every virtuous man would rather meet an open foe than a pretended friend who is a traitor at heart. Among all things and persons to be despised, what is more base or vile than the pretender?
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
"Hypocrisy", Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
The hypocrite has not a living hope, but a lying hope, and a dying hope.
LEIGHTON
attributed, Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers
He is a pretender to those good qualifications of which he is really destitute, and a dissembler of those vices which he secretly practices. He is that in the church, which a knave is in the state. The one is not fit for civil society; nor the other for christian communion. Were he to appear in his real colors, men would clap their hands at him, and hiss him out of his place. Therefore he paints his face, like Jezebel, with a varnish of goodly words, of sanctified looks, of actions seemingly benevolent and devout. He prays with great fluency of expression; you would think him an angel for fervency and rapture; but it is only in the presence of others. And though his words are flaming, his heart is ice. He gives alms indeed, but must always take witnesses upon it. He is very punctual in going to church, where he seats himself in some remarkable corner, in order to attract all eyes upon himself. He seems to be all attention and composure; he lifts up his hands and eyes in a religious manner; or covers his face, or heaves a sigh, or sends forth a groan. O how mightily he is impressed with the sermon, if you believe his face; while, in the meanwhile, he is indulging his lusts, and his heart going out after his covetousness!
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"The Character of a Hypocrite", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
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
Perhaps, there is not a more effectual key to the discovery of hypocrisy than a censorious temper. The man possessed of real virtue knows the difficulty of attaining it; and is, of course, more inclined to pity others, who happen to fail in the pursuit. The hypocrite, on the other hand, having never trod the thorny path, is less induced to pity those who desert it for the flowery one. He exposes the unhappy victim without compunction, and even with a kind of triumph; not considering that vice is the proper object of compassion; or that propensity to censure is almost a worse quality than any it can expose.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
"On Hypocrisy", Essays on Men and Manners
If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
Another little phase of everyday life that might be amusing if it were not so pathetic is the pious way some old skinflint whose specialty is foreclosing widows' mortgages can act in church.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
When he fasts he assumes a sorrowful air, and a disfigured face; and is grieved for sin as much as the bulrush when it hangs the head. When he is in religious company, he talks of his experience, the plagues of his heart, and complains of the great decay of religion in the day.--He is a most uncharitable censurer of others, while he practices far greater villainies himself.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"The Character of a Hypocrite", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
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", Poetical Works
Those who parade piety as a purpose and an aim mostly turn into hypocrites.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Maxims and Reflections
There never was a hypocrite so disguised, but he had yet some mark or other to be known by.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust