W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Hypocrisy is the universal solvent of social relations.

The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.

Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.

Be a hypocrite if you like, but don't talk like one.

The petty man is eager to make boasts, yet desires that others should believe in him. He enthusiastically engages in deception, yet wants others to have affection for him. He conducts himself like an animal, yet wants others to think well of him.

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

In all unmerciful actions, the worst of men pay this compliment at least to humanity, as to endeavour to wear as much of the appearance of it, as the case will well let them.

Canting hypocrisy

We have a Sunday code and a weekday code. We preach good and practice evil. We clothe the wolf of our actions in the sheep's clothing of our beautiful phrases.

Men condemne the same things in others, which they approve in themselves; on the other side, they publickly commend what they privately condemne;

Hypocrisy is not the failure to practice what you preach but the failure to believe it. Hypocrisy is propaganda.

Oh Lord. Deliver us from the hypocrisy of talking to sound reasonable while not being reasonable.

Hypocrites are more enraging than extremists, as every campaign operative knows.

Cant is the twin sister of hypocrisy.

The English are the people of consummate cant.

Man is nothing but insincerity, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in regard to himself and in regard to others. He does not wish that he should be told the truth, he shuns saying it to others; and all these moods, so inconsistent with justice and reason, have their roots in his heart.

Hypocrisy is nothing, in fact, but a horrible hopefulness.

This is an example of hypocrisy

Had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies.

The best of women are hypocrites.

Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.

The moment you sense someone is making something because they think people are gonna buy it or like it, it's just so phony! The public has a nose for phony like nobody else.