This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Affectation proceeds from one of these two causes - vanity or hypocrisy; for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavor to avoid censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues.
Affectation | Appearance | Applause | Censure | Character | Hypocrisy | Order |
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts. They bravely unveil their weaknesses, their doubts, their defects. They are courageous. They boldly ride a-tilt against prejudices. They love their fellow-men profoundly. They are generous. They allow their hearts to expand. They have compassion for all forms of suffering. Pity is the very foundation-stone of Genius.
Character | Compassion | Defects | Genius | Hypocrisy | Love | Men | Pity | Suffering | Virtue | Virtue |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
It is very noble hypocrisy not to talk of one's self.
Waldo Beach, fully William Waldo Beach
It is not just negative inertia and caution which lie behind racial discrimination, but the positive counterfaiths which produce them. The “conflicting valuations” turn out to be a warfare of the gods in the soul of man. Ultimately the racial problem is not one of hypocrisy but idolatry.
Iskander Mirza, fully Major-General Sahibzada Sayyid Iskander Ali Mirza
Democracy without education is hypocrisy without limitation.
In politics, religion is now a name; in art, a hypocrisy or affectation.
Affectation | Art | Hypocrisy | Politics | Religion |
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
The greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
Hypocrisy | Men | Public | Success | Superstition |
Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had an have no wish for.
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
A great many people do many things that seem to be inspired more by a spirit of ostentation than by heartfelt kindness… Such a pose is nearer akin to hypocrisy than to generosity or moral goodness.
Generosity | Hypocrisy | Ostentation | People | Spirit |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Absolute honesty is essential in one's search for God (Truth). The subtleties of the Path are finer than a hair. The least hypocrisy becomes a wave that washes one off the Path. It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows. In the guise of honesty this self even deceives itself. For instance your self claims, I love Baba. The fact is, if you really loved Baba you would not be your false self making the self-asserting statement!