Walter Bagehot Quotes

The virtue of some people consists wholly in condemning the vices in others.

If you just want money and tax cuts and stuff, fine - just stop acting like you're moral.

A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute.

Pharisaism is not a degeneration in a good man: a large portion of it is rather the condition of all being-good.

If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, piousness is virtue paying tribute to itself.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

There is no sinner like a young saint.

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

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.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

He's nice enough not to want to be associated with a nasty remark but not nice enough not to make it. Lacking the courage of one's nastiness does not make one nice.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.

I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people.

And I think it's really easy for people to point out hypocrisy in people's lives.

a moralistic bastard.

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as “moral indignation,” which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters, even that of disinterestedness

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