Erwin McManus Quotes

We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.

What I'm trying to do is be righteous. And when I say “righteous,” I don't mean God. You know? God- Righteous. I mean just when I wake up, I know I was honest to myself.

I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.

One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.

Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous.

Integrity, like humility, is a quality which vanishes the moment we are conscious of it in ourselves. We see it only in others.

So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

We're all hypocrites. We all say one thing and do another. But why don't we try to do what we say more than what we don't?

Your friend is intellectually honourable," Jimmy's mother would say. "He doesn't lie to himself.

Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have.

Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.

He said to tell you to remember your heart in all things, that it is where your honor and your destiny will be found. Does it mean anything to you?' It is something he would say from time to time-that the eye could be misled, but that the heart was true.

Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else.

I think it's just too much trouble to be dishonest and keep up with yourself.

God knows we are subtle creatures who are more than able to use candour to avoid acknowledging our deceptions of others and ourselves.

In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue - is hypocrisy.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

Underlying all the explanations, intellectual constructions and self-delusions, we can still know a good man when we see one.