Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays, 1841

In the last analysis we must be judged by what we do and not by what we believe. We are as we behave — with a very small margin of credit for our unmanifested vision of how we might behave if we could take the trouble. – Geoffrey L. Rudd, The British Vegetarian, September/October 1962

When you say that you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. – Otto von Bismarck

He rightly reads scripture who turns words into deeds. – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux