Old, but still true

I just came across a sentence that made me first think, then nod and finally smile with consent. Paul Krugman used it in his column in this Sunday's New York Times: “Hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.” It turns out that the sentence has not been coined by the admirable Krugman but already a few hundred years ago by François de La Rochefoucauld who used it in his Reflections or Sentences and Moral Maxims. A great observation well worded, undisputedly true.