No. 257
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
Source: Selected Essays, 1778-1830
“Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.”
Source: Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), p. 15
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W. Somerset Maugham 158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965Related quotes
Source: Pierrette (1840), Ch. IV: Pierrette.
Context: Little minds need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts. Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.
“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.”
Source: Motherland (2012 novel), p. 18
“Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.”
Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2
“Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue.”
L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu.
Maxim 218.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Source: Discipleship (1937), The Disciple and Unbelievers, p. 184.
Art Nonsense and Other Essays (1929), published by Cassell; quoted in Eric Gill: Man of Flesh and Spirit by Malcolm Yorke, published by Tauris Parke ISBN 1-86064-584-4, p. 49