VICE QUOTES
quotations about vice
Vice knows she's ugly, so puts on her Mask.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746
One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.
BRET HARTE
"Two Men of Sandy Bar"
Ah, vice! how soft are they voluptuous ways,
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze?
A cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Merchant of Venice
No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Every deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
What makes Existence really nice
Is Virtue--with a dash of Vice.
HARRY GRAHAM
Perverted Proverbs
She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong.
MAE WEST
I'm No Angel
To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.
OUIDA
Two Little Wooden Shoes
Whether as a moral kink or a crooked twist given to the will, vice has often the appearance of a curvature for the soul.
HENRI BERGSON
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
Alas, the vices of man, as horrifying as they are presumed to be, contain proof (if only in their infinite expansiveness!) of his bent for the infinite.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le poème du haschisch", Les Paradis Artificiels
Your vices are helping you temporarily. You are doing this to help yourself through a very difficult time. Once you are happy and find yourself enlightened, you will not need vices at all. You will not even care to be around your old vices.
ANWAN
Reclaiming the Shadow Self: Facing the Dark Side in Human Consciousness
Virtue and vice are the only things in this world, which, with our souls, are capable of surviving death; the former is the rational and only procuring cause of all intellectual happiness, and the latter of conscious guilt and misery; and therefore, our indispensable duty and ultimate interest is, to love, cultivate and improve the one, as the means of our greatest good, and to hate and abstain from the other, as productive of our greatest evil.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
Underneath the topmost layers of frailty, men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love.
JOHN STEINBECK
attributed, The Practice of Psychological Assessment
Virtues and vices are interwoven, braided together. This interdependence should not surprise us. It is why coaches and teachers insist that we develop all of our skills, not just the ones we already possess. And given that human nature emerges from divine nature--we were created by God and in the image of God--it should not surprise us to realize that virtues and vices reflect upon, and are rooted in, our relationship to God.
TERRANCE KLEIN
"Want more humility? There's a prayer for that", America Magazine, August 26, 2016
Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
There are many diversities of vice; but it is one never-failing effect of it, to live displeased and discontented.
SENECA
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit and Humor, Odd Comparisons and Proverbs
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness.
LYSANDER SPOONER
"Vices are not crimes", Niagara Falls Reporter, May 6, 2014
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
attributed, The Wit & Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecdotes, and Observations