Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

Cant is the twin sister of hypocrisy.

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

One of my weaknesses happens to be lying, and I could tell you that I'm never going to lie again in my life, but that would be a lie.

Those who appear the most sanctified are the worst.

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.

Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.

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

It might be said that the pose of absolute honesty is the most dishonest one of all.

All I can say is anybody who's spent most of his life living a lie is not somebody I admire.

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.

False modesty is the most decent of all lies.

A hypocrite is one who plays two parts consciously for his own ends. When we find fault with other people we may be quite sincere, and yet Jesus says in reality we are frauds.

Hypocrisy is a revolting, psychopathic state.

The false man is more false to himself than to any one else. He may despoil others, but himself is the chief loser. The world's scorn he might sometimes forget, but the knowledge of his own perfidy is undying.

I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.

Hypocrisy is no cheap vice; nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.

The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.

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.

I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.

Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.

Discretion is the polite word for hypocrisy.