Voltaire Quotes

Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

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

Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.

Of all things in the world that stink in the nostrils of men, hypocrisy is the worst.

Sin corrupts even our good deeds. We injure our shoulder trying to pat ourselves on the back.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.

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

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

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

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.

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them are abomination …

Ambition is the mother of hypocrisy and prefers to skulk in corners and dark places. It cannot endure the light of day. It is an unclean vice wallowing in the depths, always hidden, but with ever an eye to advancement.

Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.

Everybody's out there to make a case and sometimes a little hypocrisy gets involved with that case.

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

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

We corrupt the word of truth, and mix ... our doctrine with what is common and cheap... in order to turn the adulteration to our profit, and accommodate ourselves to those who meet us, and curry favor with everyone, becoming ventriloquists and chatterers, who serve their own pleasures by words uttered from the earth, and sinking into the earth, and, to gain the special good will of the multitude

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

Humanity never met a dictator or demagogue who said, “I’m a bad person. I want to do bad things.” The worst among us always feel justified.

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

Vice is Washington's signature. A fish rots from the head, and Washington has led our country into vice, greed, selfishness, and the mockery and destruction of human life.