Vices Quotes - Page 11

• Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Encouragement, Motivation

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• Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

  Francis Bacon

  Adversity, Prosperity, Virtue

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• It is the common vice of all, in old age, to be too intent upon our interests.

  Terence

  Age, Common, Youth

  Terence, Henry Thomas Riley, Christopher Smart (1853). “The Comedies of Terence: And the Fables of Phædrus”, p.251

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• It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.

  Voltaire

  Girl, Sex, Humorous

  Letter to M. Mariott, 28 March 1766

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• The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.

  Samuel Butler

  Men, Virtue, Extremes

  Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.30, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• It is very grand to die in harness, but it is very pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted from the neck and shoulders.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Necks, Virtue, Harness

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• Vices of the time; vices of the man.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, He Man

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• In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose Principles and licentious habits are impressed upon Children in their earliest years . . . . The Vices and Examples of the Parents cannot be concealed from the Children. How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers.

  John Adams

  Education, Mother, Children

  John Adams (2004). “The Portable John Adams”, p.75, Penguin

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• The commander must decide how he will fight the battle before it begins. He must then decide who he will use the military effort at his disposal to force the battle to swing the way he wishes it to go; he must make the enemy dance to his tune from the beginning and not vice versa.

  Bernard Law Montgomery

  Military, Fighting, Swings

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• 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?

  John Adams

  Passion, Differences, People

  John Adams, Daniel LEONARD, Jonathan SEWALL (1819). “Novanglus and Massachusettensis; or, political essays, published in ... 1774 and 1775, on the principal points of controversy, between Great Britain and her colonies; the former by John Adams ... the latter by Jonathan Sewall [or rather, Daniel Leonard] ... To which are added a number of letters lately written by President Adams to the Hon. William Tudor, etc”, p.11

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• Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of low and base minds. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; a mark which all the external advantages of wealth, splendour, and nobility, cannot obliterate. It is consistent neither with learning nor true civility.

  William Jones

  Ignorance, Animal, Dumb

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• That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

  Adam Smith

  Respect, Greatness, Age

  Adam Smith (1869). “Essays On, I. Moral Sentiments: II. Astronomical Inquiries; III. Formation of Languages; IV. History of Ancient Physics; V. Ancient Logic and Metaphysicis; VI. The Imitative Arts; VII. Music, Dancing, Poetry; VIII. The External Senses; IX. English and Italian Verses”, p.57

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• The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.

  John Adams

  Blessing, Government, Affliction

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.418

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• As children's inquiries are not to be slighted, so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and illuding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived, and quickly learn the trick of neglect, dissimulation, and falsehood, which they observe others to make use of. We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation, but least of all with children; since, if we play false with them, we not only deceive their expectation, and hinder their knowledge, but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices.

  John Locke

  Children, Taken, Teaching

  John Locke (2007). “Some Thoughts Concerning Education: (Including Of the Conduct of the Understanding)”, p.94, Courier Corporation

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• I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state (rebirth) to be incomparably more rational, more pious, and more likely to deter men from vice than the horrid opinions inculcated by Christians on punishments without end.

  William Jones

  Christian, Men, Doctrine

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• Will you tell me how to prevent riches from producing luxury? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?

  John Adams

  Luxury, Riches, Extravagance

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.386

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• It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.

  John Adams

  Horse, Kings, Freedom

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.546

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• A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.

  John Adams

  Passion, Errors, Prejudice

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.87, Hackett Publishing

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• 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.

  William Ellery Channing

  Blessing, Light, Race

  William Ellery Channing (1888). “The Works of William E. Channing”

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• The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.

  Henry Miller

  Wise, Keys, Order

  Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.118, New Directions Publishing

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• ...the century's most radical vice... the notion that human beings can be shoveled around like concrete.

  Paul Johnson

  Political, Century, Radical

  Paul Johnson (1991). “Modern times: the world from the twenties to the nineties”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

  Francis Bacon

  Adversity, Odor, Prosperity

  Francis Bacon (2016). “Essays”, p.14, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Nor is it the least advantage to health, accruing from such a way of life, that it expose those who follow it to fewer temptations to vice, than persons who live in crowded society.

  William Falconer

  Temptation, Way, Advantage

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• The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known.

  William Falconer

  Numbers, Moral Corruption, Well Known

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• It's entirely to do with personality, I think. There are good directors who talk a lot, bad directors who talk a lot, and good directors who don't say much and vice-versa. It just depends on whether people respond to that personality and whether people have a willingness to do something for them.

  Colin Firth

  Thinking, People, Personality

  "Then She Found Me - Colin Firth interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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