Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches. Samuel Johnson
made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14:
Thus, an alcoholic's advocating temperance, for example, would not be considered an act of hypocrisy as long as the alcoholic made no pretense of constant sobriety.
The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek
ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "Jealous" "play-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling".
Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation, part of the chosen trappings of folly! the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop. Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.
In sermon style he bought,And sold, and lied; and salutations madeIn Scripture terms. He prayed by quantity,And with his repetitions long and loud,All knees were weary.
Hypocrisy is a sort of homage that vice pays to virtue.
If you think that you can sin, and then by cries avert the consequences of sin, you insult God's character.
Men turn their faces to hell, and hope to get to heaven; why don't they walk into the horsepond, and hope to be dry?
Hypocrites do the devil's drudgery in Christ's livery.
Woe unto thee if after all thy profession thou shouldst be found under the power of ignorance, lost in formality, drowned in earthly-mindedness, envenomed with malice, exalted in an opinion of thine own righteousness, leavened with hypocrisy and carnal ends in God's service.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.