Hypocrisy

“ The practice of perfect hypocrisy is a relief in itself, a secret triumph of the vilest sort, no doubt, but still a way of getting even with the common morality from which some of us appear to suffer so much. ”

“ They like the sanction it gives to their own hypocrisy. They like a man to come to them who will say to them, ‘We are all hypocrites together,’ and who will put his finger to his nose and comfort them. ”

“ All their incongruous life is here, on the palm of my hand, with all its cynicism, monstrous and coarse injustice; but there is in it none of that falsehood and that hypocrisy before people and before one’s self, which enmesh all humanity from top to bottom. ”

“ We accustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a double-faced morality. And since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we cheat ourselves with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry become the second nature of the civilized man.
But a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth or cease to exist. ”

“ Though some of you may think yourselves exalted to a height that bids defiance to human justice, and others shroud yourselves beneath the mask of hypocrisy, and build your hopes of safety on the low arts of cunning, chicanery and falsehood ”

“ Your heart, on every occasion, belies your conduct; every where your countenance is in contradiction to your sentiments; you are the hypocrites of the world, of ambition, of favour, and of fortune; and it well becomes you, after that, to accuse the just of the same tricks, and so loudly to ring their dissimulation and pretended hypocrisy: when you shall have nothing in the same way with which to reproach yourselves, then will we listen to the temerity of your censures ”

“ Would it not appear still more astonishing to such beings, if they should be further informed, that, by means of this same organ, we can perceive the tempers and dispositions, the passions and affections of our fellow-creatures, even when they want most to conceal them? That when the tongue is taught most artfully to lie and dissemble, the hypocrisy should appear in the countenance to a discerning eye? ”

“ See the nature of hypocrisy: it lies in the heart, which is for the world and the flesh when the outside seems to be for God and religion. Many that are saints in show and saints in word are hypocrites in heart. That spring is corrupt, and there is an evil treasure there. See the mischievousness of hypocrisy: hypocrites heap up wrath. They are doing that every day which is provoking to God, and will be reckoned with for it all together in the great day. They treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, Rom. ii. 5. Their sins are laid up in store with God among his treasures, Deut. ”

“ At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. ”

“ And the greater the divergence between actual life and men's conscience, the greater the extension of hypocrisy. But even hypocrisy has its limits. And it seems to me that we have reached those limits in the present day. ”

“ Where is the man that has found but a single opportunity of losing his heart? But you love to deceive us, and we submit to be deceived, poor foolish creatures that we are; for your hypocrisy is, after all, a homage paid to the superiority of our sentiments, which are all purity. ”

“ Now, the first step to the cure of all such hypocrisy, and to the salvation of our souls, is to know that we are hypocrites, and to know also what that is in which we are most hypocritical. Well, there are two absolutely infallible tests of a true hypocrite,—tests warranted to unmask, expose, and condemn the most finished, refined, and even evangelical hypocrite in this house to-night, or in all the world. By far and away the best and swiftest is prayer. ”

“ Wilt thou not leave off becoming worse than the very hypocrites, and making thine hypocrisy double? And when thou considerest the great excess of this evil, wilt thou not be abashed at the force of the expression now before us? ”

“ The hypocrisy which persecutes in the name of law, whether political or moral, while in private it transgresses the very law which is for ever on its tongue, is turned by his passionate and sorely-tempted character into a too easy excuse for disbelieving in the obligation of any law whatsoever. He ceases to worship, and therefore to be himself worshipful—and we know the rest. ”

“ The web of the hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies. ”

“ And these people have so entered into their part that they seriously believe that they really are what they pretend to be.
The universal hypocrisy has so entered into the flesh and blood of all classes of our modern society, it has reached such a pitch that nothing in that way can rouse indignation. ”

“ And, indeed, with all his delinquencies, and with all his affectations, there are moments in which we forget to preserve the correct tone of moral indignation. Every now and then genuine feeling seems to come to the surface. For a time the superincumbent masses of hypocrisy vanish. ”

“ We were taught to be spies upon each other, to cringe servilely to our superiors, and to deal treacherously with such as were beneath us. Hypocrisy—innate, unfathomable hypocrisy—was instilled into our minds so cunningly that we did not recognise it. ”

“ Hypocrisy in the sense of a deliberate covering up of a will to evil by loud-voiced protestations of virtue is one of the rarest of occurrences. But the combination in the same person of an intensely executive nature with a love of popular approval is bound, in the face of conventional morality, to produce what the critical term hypocrisy. ”

“ After exhausting all the resources of fraud and falsehood, during years upon years; after exhibiting a combination of dastardly meanness with ensanguined daring, such as the world has not often witnessed; you have now the hypocrisy to bend the knee before the most degraded of mankind, and to sue and whine and howl for mercy! ”

“ To procure unanimity, to get men to act in corps, we must appeal for the most part to gross and obvious motives, to authority and passion, to their vices, not their virtues: we must discard plain truth and abstract justice as doubtful and inefficient pleas, retaining only the names and the pretext as a convenient salvo for hypocrisy! ”

“ As to those who have better knowledge, and make use of this assumed fact as a scape-goat for their lethargy, not having independence enough to confess the truth, I commend them, together with their meanness, to such particles of conscience as are yet left unscathed by the searing iron of hypocrisy. ”

“ It seemed a weak-minded exaggeration of hypocrisy to abstain from preying on men so furiously divided, so full of hatred, so incapable of combining in defence of their altars and their homes, so eager in soliciting aid and intervention from the infidel in their own disputes. ”

“ If Hypocrisy were not able to disguise her name, and the nature of every evil, under the similitude of some good, and were not able to give some evil nickname to all goodness, no one would approach, and no one would covet evil at all. ”

“ Whatever people may say or think to the contrary, hypocrisy—that is, a really well-sustained and long-maintained hypocrisy—is one of the rarest things to be met with, and might even be suspected never to exist at all, since the qualities and gifts necessary, or indeed indispensable, to its attainment are exactly of an order which bespeaks some of the first and greatest traits of human nature, and for that reason would make the game of dissimulation impossible ”

“ The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. ”

“ The foolish expectation of more time on earth than God hath given you warrant to expect, is the cause that we overvalue the judgment of man, as well as other earthly things, and is a great maintainer of every sensual vice.
Direct. XV. Set yourselves to the mortifying of self-love and pride: for hypocrisy is but the exercise of these. Hypocrisy is dead so far as pride is dead; and so far as self-denial and humility prevail. Hypocrisy is a proud desire to appear better than you are. Be thoroughly humbled and vile in your own eyes, and hypocrisy is done. ”

“ I hate and abhor lying, which may be taken for all sin, inasmuch as by it we deal treacherously and perfidiously with God and put a cheat upon ourselves. Hypocrisy is lying; false doctrine is lying; breach of faith is lying. ”

“ Yet, with unheard-of hypocrisy towards men, towards God, and their own consciences—for without such a complication of it their conduct is inexplicable—even this action, which so little admitted of any cloak, was, we know, contrived and carried into execution, under pretences of authority, religion, liberty, and by profaning the forms of justice in an arraignment and trial, like to what is used in regular legal procedures. No age, indeed, can show an example of hypocrisy parallel to this. ”

“ To talk for effect with the thinly concealed purpose of deceiving a part of the American people all of the time has been and continues to be a favorite practice with many of the politicians of the country. Yet this public trick of proclaiming sentiments and opinions with the tongue in the cheek is the conspicuous surface-symptom of a larger vice which is fitly described as hypocrisy. There is a way of looking at this accusation which deprives it of part of its sting, yet leaves us in a predicament not very complimentary to our boasted sense of humor. ”

“ Searching out, spreading abroad, scandalizing, and rejoicing in the real or supposed falls, sins and infirmities of others, to cover their own sins, such are Hypocrites.
Pretenders to universal love to all, at the same time haters of truth, those who preach it boldly, and profess it sincerely, are Hypocrites.
Making an outcry against one sin and living in another, for instance, a covetous professor may storm against the sin of drunkenness; why, because he loves his money so inordinately—yet will not scruple to drink occasionally a little too much at another person’s expence, this is Hypocrisy. ”

“ But when I reflect on the uniformity of their support to the objects of their uniform censure, and the state of insignificance and disgrace to which all of those have been reduced whom they approved, and that even utter ruin and premature death have been among the fruits of their favor, I must be convinced, that in this case, as in all others, hypocrisy is the only vice that never can be cured. ”

“ The sixth bough of pride is hypocrisy, which is a sin that makes one show the good without that is not within. 21 Those, then, are hypocrites who pretend to be good men and are not, who pretend to have more strength than name of good man, than truth and holiness. ”

“ In my Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, I have endeavoured to expose a second great evil, namely, hypocrisy; the bane of all virtue, morality, and goodness; and to arm, as well as I can, the honest, undesigning, open-hearted man, who is generally the prey of this monster, against it. I believe a little reflection will convince us, that most mischiefs (especially those which fall on the worthiest part of mankind) owe their original to this detestable vice. ”

“ Setting out in the ministry with sound truth, but sound truth becoming unpopular, and with a view to avoid reproach, as an Antinomian in principle, mingling grace and works, law and gospel, Calvinism and Arminianism, to keep up the name of being reputable, is Hypocrisy.
Persons coming into a profession, taking up religion for connection, trade, or for any other profit in temporal things, is an Hypocrite.
Pleading for holiness, morality, duty and consistency; yet living in secret sin, as his real element, though unknown to others, is an Hypocrite. ”

“ I may have done things to be ashamed of; most men have. But there are forms of hypocrisy that make one sick to contemplate. I don't know that I was ever a hypocrite." He put up his eyeglass, and stared at the preacher slowly from head to foot. "Nevertheless, I own that your plan has paid best. I congratulate you on the success of your preaching." ”

“ Know thou, for it is good thou shouldst be told, that all hypocrisy is the offspring of cowardice, and is therefore impossible to be practised by a brave man: know also, that when thou art deceiving man, thou art lying to God, which is an impiety not to be thought of by an honest man: and know, in conclusion, that when thou art called upon for thy opinion, if thou givest not that which is in thy heart, thou art guilty of that hypocrisy which is cowardice, and that deceit which is perjury. ”

“ Considering how much influence this vague persuasion has in encouraging a well-meaning hypocrisy in individuals, and a profound stagnation in societies, it may be well to examine the matter somewhat generally. Let us try to measure the force of some of the most usual pleas for error. ”

“ And as expressed in the Litany of the Church of England—“and from all hypocrisy, good Lord deliver us.” The hypocrite thus painted to the life, we cannot err in the description; many have been painted by others very differently, and many have painted themselves, and sat down to admire their likenesses ”