La Rochefoucauld §laroch_218: Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
Source: François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665) (laroch_218) · external_aligned
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. [So Massillon, in one of his sermons, "Vice pays homage to virtue in doing honour to her appearance." So Junius, writing to the Duke of Grafton, says, "You have done as much mischief to the community as Machiavel, if Machiavel had not known that an appearance of morals and religion are useful in society."--28 Sept. 1771.]
Witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15)
- manuscript_tradition: First edition, Paris 1665 — Barbin imprint
- critical_edition: Pleiade edition — Truchet (Gallimard, 1964)
- translation: Tancock translation (Penguin Classics, 1959)
- republication: Project Gutenberg — Maxims
- republication: Internet Archive — multiple editions