Purity is overrated

'Have you done this before?'
'Of course. Hundreds of times - well, scores of times anyway.'
[...]
'Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand?'
'Yes, perfectly.'
'I hate purity. I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.'
'Well, then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.'
'You like doing this? I don't mean simply with me: I mean the thing itself?'
'I adore it.'

"Ninteteen Eighty-Four", George Orwell.

Flattery

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is even one hundredth part of a false note in candor, there is immediately a dissonance, and then ﹘ scandal. But with flattery, even if everything is false down to the last little note, it is still agreeable and is listened to not without pleasure; crude though the pleasure may be, it is still a pleasure. And however crude the flattery may be, at least half of it is sure to seem true. And that is so for all levels of development and strata of society. Even a vestal virgin can be seduced by flattery. Not to mention ordinary people.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment".