The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.
High fortune makes both our virtues and vices stand out as objects that are brought clearly to view by the light.
It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents.
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.
Our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.
Pride is the king of vices...it is the first of the pallbearers of the soul...other vices destroy only their opposite virtues, as wantonness destroys chastity; greed destroys temperance; anger destroys gentleness; but pride destroys all virtues.
If a man has no vices, he is in great danger of making vices about his virtues, and there's a spectacle.
When both my parents were unwell I was in that situation that will be very familiar to many women. I had young children in one part of the country, and elderly unwell parents in another. I was in a constant state of guilt. Was I there enough for my mother? Was I there enough for my children?
Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs.
Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls.
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
Our virtues live upon our incomes; our vices consume our capital.
Neither our vices nor our virtues further the poem.
If we escape punishment for our vices, why should we complain if we are not rewarded for our virtues?
We endeavor to conceal our vices under the disguise of the opposite virtues.
Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.