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About this quote

What does it mean?
Hypocrisy in violence is worse than natural instinct.
In plain terms
A wolf pretending to be kind before eating is worse.
What can you take from it?
Beware hypocritical cruelty.

Where it applies

  • leadership critique
  • moral judgment

Putting it to work

  • spot hypocrisy
  • be direct

Questions to consider

  • Who acts worse than their words?

Another view

Natural violence can also be justified.

More from Leo Tolstoy

  1. Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

    Permalink to quote #134
  2. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

    Permalink to quote #136
  3. True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

    Permalink to quote #133

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