Vices Quotes - Page 38

• If we tread our vices under our feet, we make of them a ladder by which to rise to higher things.

  Saint Augustine

  Feet, Ladders, Higher

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• Virtue consists in fleeing vice.

  Horace

  Fleeing, Virtue

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• Whatever folly men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remember that when these faults appear in others it is our follies and vices that we behold.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Exercise, Men, May

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.224, Simon and Schuster

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• Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Education, Self, Two

  Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort (1902). “The Cynic's Breviary: Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort”

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• Nothing is absolutely unjust. There is no real equity, no total grandeur, no pure vice, no absolute crime.

  Julien Offray de La Mettrie

  Real, Unjust, Injustice

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• It is convention and arbitrary rewards which make all the merit and demerit of what we call vice and virtue.

  Julien Offray de La Mettrie

  Arbitrary, Rewards, Merit

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• The most effective way of attacking vice is to expose it to public ridicule. People can put up with rebukes but they cannot bear being laughed at: they are prepared to be wicked but they dislike appearing ridiculous.

  Moliere

  People, Wicked, Way

  "The Misanthrope and Other Plays". Book by Molière, p. 101, 1959.

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• I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Virtue, Rapids

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.22, Courier Corporation

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• Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.

  Luc de Clapiers

  War, Fighting, Forever

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• It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy and tragedy.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Eye, Tragedy, Inward

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte (1982). “Emerson in His Journals”, p.98, Harvard University Press

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• Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue.

  Kiese Laymon

  Black, Virtue, Segregation

  Kiese Laymon (2013). “Long Division”, p.3, Agate Publishing

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• Crime and vice generally require darkness for prowling. They disappear when light plays upon them.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Light, Play, Darkness

  Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore (1968). “Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore: Being a Treasury of Over Ten Thousand Invaluable and Inspiring Thoughts, Views, and Obervations on about Eight Hundred Subjects of Popular Interest, Collected from the Speeches and Writings of These Three Great Leaders of Modern India”

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• Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Poison, Use, Ingredients

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• It is difficult for young people to live things down. We will tolerate vice, grand larceny and the quieter forms of murder in our contemporaries... but our children's friends must show a blank service record.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Children, People, Records

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jackson R. Bryer, John Richard Kuehl (1997). “The Basil and Josephine Stories”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

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• One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are rooted in a strong and anchored in a powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies, which diverts us here and there.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Forgiveness, Strong, Powerful

  "Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection".

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• If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Shine Bright, Shining, Honor

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.82, Courier Corporation

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• Just as those who practice the same profession recognize each other instinctively, so do those who practice the same vice.

  Marcel Proust

  Practice, Profession

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• The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Taste, Firsts

  "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson". Book by Thomas Jefferson, p. 30, 1904.

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• There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.

  Victor Hugo

  Depression, Struggle, Blow

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.

  William Hazlitt

  Book, Knowledge, World

  William Hazlitt (1836). “Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt: Essays: On self-love. On the conduct of life: or, Advice to a school-boy. On the fine arts. The fight. On want of money. On the feeling of immortality in youth. The main-chance. The opera. Of persons one would wish to have seen. My first acquaintance with poets. The shyness of scholars. The Vatican. On the spirit of monarchy”, p.91

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• Virtue and vice, evil and good, are siblings, or next-door neighbors, Easy to make mistakes, hard to tell them apart.

  Ovid

  Sibling, Mistake, Doors

  Ovid (1957). “The Loves: The Art of Beauty, The Remedies for Love, and The Art of Love”, p.191, Indiana University Press

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• The American vice is explanation.

  Gore Vidal

  Explanation

  Gore Vidal (1982). “Pink triangle and yellow star, and other essays (1976-1982)”

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• Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Past, Energy, Aristocracy

  "Democracy in America". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II. Book Three, Chapter XI, 1840.

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• In our ideals we unwittingly reveal our vices.

  Jean Rostand

  Ideals

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• There was never a wise saying that couldn't be made wiser by adding the words, "and vice-versa.

  Robert Breault

  Wise, Philosophical, Vice Versa

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