Pious fraud (Latin: pia fraus) is used to describe fraud in religion or medicine. A pious fraud can be counterfeiting a miracle or falsely attributing a sacred text to a biblical figure due to the belief that the "end justifies the means", in this case the end of increasing faith by whatever means available. Thomas Jefferson once referred to a doctor who used placebos as a fraud, even if a pious one.
Read more about Pious Fraud: Use of The Phrase, Jefferson
Famous quotes containing the words pious and/or fraud:
“Old and abandoned by each venal friend,
Here H[olland] took the pious resolution
To smuggle some few years and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)