#Vice Quotes

“Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice repeated is like the wand'ring wind, Blows dust in others' eye, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them.”

“Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion.”

“Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.”

“There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.”

“What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”

“Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.”

“No man has ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him.”

“Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.”

“Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly.”

“Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.”

“Five great enemies of peace inhabit us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride.”

“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.--Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”

“Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; Filths savour but themselves.”

“The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.”

“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime by action dignified.”

“Everything runs to excess; every good quality is noxious if unmixed.”

“Indeed envy is a defect; worse than any other.”

“Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.”

“Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice.”

“For in the fatness of these pursy timesVirtue itself of vice must pardon beg.”

“I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood".”

“Vice repeated is like the wandering wind, blows dust in others' eyes to spread itself.”

“Pride eradicates all vices but itself.”

“Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.”

“The king-becoming graces,As justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness,Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,I have no relish of them, but aboundIn the division of each several crime,Acting in many ways.”

“The virtues of society are the vices of the saints.”

“There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.”

“Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.”

“In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation.”

“Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.”

“One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.”

“It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.”

“Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.”

“If I quake, what matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in one or another shape, according to the sex, age, or temperament of the person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors.”

“We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable.”

“Nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice.”

“Error is to be pitied and pardoned: it is the weakness of human nature. But vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.”

“Extremes meet, and there is no better example than the naughtiness of humility.”

“Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.”

“The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity.”

“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.”

“If a woman wants to hold a man she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him.”

“The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.”

“The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.”

“What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.”

“The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but- what is worse - the slave of as many masters as he has vices.”

“He hadn’t a single redeeming vice.”

“Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.”

“Great parts produce great vices as well as virtues.”

“Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.”