Moral Pretension Quotes

Where do you draw the line between a humble man who knows his own weaknesses but tries to act out virtues he hasn't quite mastered yet, and a proud man who pretends to have those virtues without the slightest intention of acquiring them?

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

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.

How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were tobegin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought!