VICE QUOTES III

quotations about vice

It is but a step from companionship to slavery when one associates with vice.

HOSEA BALLOU

Treasury of Thought

Tags: Hosea Ballou


Since, therefore, vices are contrary to virtue, the whole systems must of necessity differ from and be contrary to each other. Because vices are commotions and perturbations of the soul; virtue, on the contrary, is mildness and tranquility of mind.

LACTANTIUS

The Sacred Writings of Lactantius


We try to make a virtue of vices we are loath to correct.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tags: François de La Rochefoucauld


Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Francis Bacon


Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.

QUENTIN CRISP

The Naked Civil Servant

Tags: Quentin Crisp


Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

ALEXANDER POPE

Essay on Man

Tags: Alexander Pope


My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.

MOLIÈRE

The Misanthrope

Tags: Molière


It is not by a hair-cloth or a whip that vices are subdued. These things inconvenience the body, but surely do not improve the soul.

JEAN DAILLÉ

An Exposition of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Philippians


You must master the vices. You know that if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing well. If, however, a thing is not worth doing then it's worth doing fabulously, amazingly, with grace, style and panache.

ISLA DEWAR

Women Talking Dirty


There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning -- without altogether recognizing it beneath the disguise of ambiguous behavior which it assumes in his presence.

MARCEL PROUST

Swann's Way

Tags: Marcel Proust


One of the affecting features in a life of vice is the longing, wistful outlooks given by the wretches who struggle with unbridled passions, towards virtues which are no longer within their reach. Men in the tide of vice are sometimes like the poor creatures swept down the stream of mighty rivers, who see people safe on shore, and trees, and flowers, as they go quickly past; and all things that are desirable gleam upon them for a moment to heighten their trouble, and to aggravate their swift-coming destruction.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

Notes from the Underground

Tags: Fyodor Dostoevsky


We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Sermons

Tags: St. Augustine


Human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain.

MILO

"Aquinas and Augustine Were Radical Progressives", Breitbart, January 31, 2017


The martyrs to vice, far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number. So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

On Education

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

attributed, Napoleon in His Own Words

Tags: Napoleon Bonaparte


If your potential vice is cheesecake, for instance ... you may consciously limit your access and make sure you aren't surrounded by things that elicit cravings for that cheesecake. Or you may ensure you have easy access to fruit, or to another healthy cheesecake substitute. In a gambling situation, you may set spending limits before you start betting. In any situation, you might think about alternative rewards, like spending time with your family.

GREG BRUCE

"What is a vice and how do we get over them?", New Zealand Herald, April 22, 2017


I laugh at human passions and human cares, vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one severe and abrupt lesson from the colorless and shriveled lip of necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. It silences in a second all the feeble sophistry of conventional life, and ascetical passion.

CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN

Melmoth the Wanderer


Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

CHARLES DICKENS

Dombey and Son

Tags: Charles Dickens