Top 1200 Vice And Virtue Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

Virtue consists in avoiding vice, and is the highest wisdom. [Lat., Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima.]

The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.

Virtue and vice are both prophets; the first, of certain good; the second, of pain or else of penitence.

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

Counsel and conversation is a good second education, that improves all the virtue and corrects all the vice of the former, and of nature itself.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

Patriotism is one of the unalterable facts of man's nature. It is a virtue if you like it, and a vice if you don't like it.

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. […] There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.[…]The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility.

The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

This is a fact: Strength in the pursuit of peace is no vice; isolation in the pursuit of security is no virtue.

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments, And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

There was only one virtue, pugnacity; only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.

The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

I think the vice of our housekeeping is that it does not hold man sacred. The vice of government, the vice of education, the viceof religion, is one with that of the private life.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

Innocence alone dares commit certain acts of audacity. Virtue, when tutored, is as calculating as vice.

Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.

Virtue, thou in rags, may challenge more than vice set off with all the trim of greatness.

[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.

You must come to terms with your wholeself. the wholeness which exceeds all our virtue and all our vice.

Natural good is' so intimately connected with moral good, and natural evil with moral evil, that I am as certain as if I heard a voice from heaven proclaim it, that God is on the side of virtue. He has learnt much, and has not lived in vain, who has practically discovered that most strict and necessary connection, that does and will ever exist between vice and misery, and virtue and happiness.

Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.

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

Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.

Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. So that a single act of mine may spread and spread in widening circles, through a nation or humanity. Through my vice I intensify the taint of vice throughout the universe. Through my misery I make multitudes sad. On the other hand, every development of my virtue makes me an ampler blessing to my race. Every new truth that I gain makes me a brighter light to humanity.

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

When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly.

We are human less by virtue of our ideal goals than by the vice of our inferiority.

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

Love is a virtue; it grows stronger and purer and less selfish by applying it to what it loathes; but theft is a vice involving the slave-idea that one's neighbor is superior to oneself.

There are two sorts of content; one is connected with exertion, the other with habits of indolence. The first is a virtue; the other, a vice.

Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.

The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.

The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.

Love is the virtue of the Heart, Sincerity is the virtue of the Mind, Decision is the virtue of the Will, Courage is the virtue of the Spirit.

Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.

Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue.

History teaches us virtue, but nature never ceases to teachh us vice.

We simply must get it through our heads that holding a low opinion of ourselves is not a virtue, but a vice.

How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!

Renown is something people have always wanted, but maybe what's modern is that it's considered a virtue, this desire, rather than a vice. I might be wrong about this.

Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" . . . If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?

We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite.

Vice, virtue - it's best not to be too moral. You'll cheat yourself out of too much life.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

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

Virtue may not always make a Face handsome, but Vice will certainly make it ugly.

It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.

Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it.