Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

A little hypocrisy is better than losing.

Every man's conscience is vile and depraved / You cannot depend on it to be your guide when it’s you who must keep it satisfied.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

Everybody is a hypocrite. You can't live on this planet without being a hypocrite.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified

Governor [Myron] Herrick is not a bad man; he is simply weak. He is one of those men who can do dishonest things honestly.

The good thing about being a hypocrite is that you get to keep your values.

The moment one begins to solder right and wrong together, one's conscience becomes like a piece of plated goods.

It is easy to be just when our own inclinations do not oppose it.

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

I consider myself a fairly ethical individual while I do have a lot of dichotomies within me. We're all victims of our own hypocrisy at times.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

Dishonesty is all about the small acts we can take and then think, 'No, this not real cheating.' So if you think that the main mechanism is rationalization, then what you come up with, and that's what we find, is that we're basically trying to balance feeling good about ourselves.

All a man can betray is his conscience.

A good man fallen among politicians.

Lenin's conscience consisted in putting himself outside the boundaries of human conscience in all dealings with his foes; and in thus rejecting all principles of honesty he remained honest with himself.

I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I'm not a complete hypocrite.

Everybody is grappling with their own moral compass, and that needle, like any needle, can't just stick. It's always floating a little bit, and depending on where you're standing, it's hard to read.

I wanted to write a book about people who have the best intentions and think - really, truly think - that they're doing the right thing. And then they realize that when those ideals come knocking at their windowsill, a lot of times they will suddenly disavow those ideals.

In the end, we would like not to be guilty while at the same time being dispensed of the effort of purifying ourselves. Not enough cynicism and not enough virtue.

Many an honest man practices upon himself an amount of deceit sufficient, if practised upon another, and in a little different way, to send him to the state prison.