Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

In Washington, and wherever two or more politicians may gather, he who does not get caught has ‘character’ and he who gets caught has none..

… he must deceive, misrepresent, leave false impressions … and trust to charm, loyalty and the result to make up for it…. A great man cannot be a good man.

The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that a pickpocket doesn't always get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

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

The character and repute of President Kennedy constitute one of our greatest national resources. Nothing should be done to jeopardize this invaluable asset. When lies must be told, they should be told by subordinate officials.

Living on hypocrisy is not a healthy diet for patriots.

Indeed, Rusbridger has finessed for the Guardian a certain willing suspension of disbelief and is able to credibly maintain conceits and moral standards to which his own behaviour hardly conforms.

The minute you try to talk business with him he takes the attitude that he is a gentleman and a scholar, and the moment you try to approach him on the level of his moral integrity he starts to talk business.

The president is on national TV apologizing for getting oral sex. Why didn't he just stick with his lie? You got to stick with your lie. If you lie, you have to believe that lie whole-heartedly. It has to become the truth for you. But this man, the most powerful man in the world, is on national TV apologizing for receiving oral sex. He's an idiot. There are men sitting in here right now who would gladly accept oral sex on national TV.

Hypocrisy is fatal to religion.

Honor is the only really good disguise for an occasional act of dishonor.

A nation has honor precisely as it has fleas - on this or that body. The statesman who talks of honor - unless he means something else, quite different - is a rogue.

You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses.

Well, when I was a kid, if my father was witnessing something that he thought was particularly outrageous or he was looking at some sort of a question that he thought lacked proper definition, he would say, Well, at least Jesse James had the honor to wear a mask.

Everybody thinks I'm very clean and sort of upright, don't they?

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

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

Me, I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to watch out for.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

I feel sorry for many politicians... we expect them to be completely consistent and moralised when we're not.

I detest politics, to be honest with you. It's a cesspool. And I don't think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don't believe in political correctness and I certainly don't believe in dishonesty.

One must say bluntly that it is an unattractive sight when, with a view to smearing the Soviet people, leaders of such a country as the United States resort to what almost amounts to obscenities alternating with hypocritical preaching about morals and humanism.

Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying your moral is not the same as acting morally.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.