Confucius Quotes

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.

As Angelo discovered in Measure for Measure, nothing corrupts like virtue.

There are some acts of justice which corrupt those who perform them.

Too much virtue has a corrupting effect.

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

Whenever there are great virtues, it's a sure sign something's wrong.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.

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

I completely scorn the falsifying, the sanctimonious, the cheap and the shoddy.

The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.

... a moral skunk .... [who has] debauched America ...

Hypocrisy is a fearful evil, and every thing which has a tendency to produce it should be avoided.

When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity. The Honourable plunderer of his country, or the Right Honourable murderer of mankind, create such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man. Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.

Other sins find their vent in the accomplishment of evil deeds, whereas pride lies in wait for good deeds, to destroy them.

Callous greed grows pious very fast.

Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.

Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

The people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.

When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.