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Literary notes about hypocritical (AI summary)

Across a range of literary works, the term "hypocritical" is deployed as a pointed criticism of individuals, institutions, or social practices that betray a dissonance between appearance and underlying intent. Authors employ it to censure those who cloak dubious motives behind a veneer of piety or righteousness—as seen when invective is directed against sanctimonious appeals in warfare [1] or used to describe charlatan behaviors masking a lewd life under a guise of sanctity [2]. It also appears in more personal or interpersonal conflicts, with characters denouncing the insincerity of others' smiles or words [3, 4] and even being hurled as a direct insult in dramatic confrontations [5, 6]. Moreover, the term is not confined solely to moral or religious hypocrisy; it extends to political, economic, and social arenas, critiquing the double standards pervasive in public discourse [7, 8]. Thus, in literature, "hypocritical" functions as a versatile and potent descriptor that exposes the gap between the facades people present and their true, often contradictory, intentions [9, 10].
  1. If we must be enemies, let us be men, and fight it out as we propose to do, and not deal in arch hypocritical appeals to God and humanity.
    — from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman
  2. [289] i.e. a hypocritical sham devotee, covering a lewd life with an appearance of sanctity.
    — from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio
  3. I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!
    — from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
  4. I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!
    — from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe
  5. Hypocritical fiend!
    — from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  6. Hypocritical fiend!
    — from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  7. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists.
    — from The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
  8. But if less brutal, it is more hypocritical.
    — from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
  9. I might observe that our Ben Jonson, who of all men understood the Ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the hypocritical affectation.
    — from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding
  10. above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what you see.
    — from Don Juan by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

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