It has been ordained that there be summer and winter, abundance and dearth, virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole, and (Zeus) has given each of us a body, property, and companions.
If you are proud of your descent from virtuous ancestors, how empty their virtue will leave your hands if you yourself are not virtuous. How little pride your ancestors will have in you in this world and the next if you do no good! All men are children of Adam whom Allah created by His own Hands, giving him paradise for a dwelling place and letting His angels bow down before him. But how little is the advantage from this since all the vices dwell in mankind and all the wicked impious people are among their number.
The great vice of democracy is that for a generation we have been busy getting ourselves on to the list of beneficiaries and removing ourselves from the list of contributors, as if somewhere there was somebody else's effort on which we could thrive.
I used to suppose that certain evils could never befall a being in possession of a sound mind; that true virtue supplies us with energy which vice can never resist; that it was always in our power to obstruct, by his own death, the designs of an enemy who aimed at less than our lives.
So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency.
Whether Barack Obama is simply incompetent as president or has some hidden agenda to undermine this country, at home and abroad, he has nearly everything he needs to ruin America, including a fool for a vice president
Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.
He's put on weight and I've lost it, and vice versa.
The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.
Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is.
The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare... On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice.
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.
Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many it is almost a vice.
It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why a man may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense.
I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels...
Former Vice President Al Gore starring in a new documentary about global warming. I believe it's called [Leno snores]. ... The film actually features Al Gore and explores his journey on how he first got interested in temperature change. It started back when he was vice president. He noticed how the temperature would change, like whenever Bill would walk into the room, it would get warm and whenever Hillary walked into the room, it got cold.
I don't believe that people vote for President based on spouses. I don't even think they vote much based on vice presidents or any other factor. I think they choose between the two people who are running.
Alas! Man's vices, horrible as they are supposed to be, contain the positive proof of his taste for the infinite.
Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than of lust.
Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God's relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us.
In things to be seen at once, much variety makes confusion, another vice of beauty. In things that are not seen at once, and have no respect one to another, great variety is commendable, provided this variety transgress not the rules of optics and geometry.
A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar.
We are human less by virtue of our ideal goals than by the vice of our inferiority.
It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.
The amount of electricity that has been saved in spite of Vice President Cheney saying that efficiency is only a moral virtue ... and that you need increased supply like ANWR-is two ANWRs worth of energy.
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