Vices Quotes - Page 2

• It is a great thing to know your vices.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Great Things, Knows

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• Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

  Edmund Burke

  Evil, Half, Losing

  'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) p. 113

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• Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Exaggeration Is, Function, Virtuous

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Beauty, Coercion, May

  "The Limits of State Action". Book by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Chapter 8, 1792.

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• To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

  Ouida

  Innocence, Kind, Chicanery

  Ouida (2016). “Wisdom, Wit and Pathos of Ouida”, p.149, Ouida

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• Evil borders upon good, and vices are confounded with virtues; as the report of good qualities is delightful to a well-disposed mind, so the relation of the contrary should not be offensive.

  Gerald of Wales

  Evil, Mind, Quality

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• Here am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice!

  Marquis de Sade

  Girl, Progress, Today

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• A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Needs, Prudent, Serious

  Niccolo Machiavelli (1979). “The Portable Machiavelli”, p.90, Penguin

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• Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Enthusiasm, Virtue, Function

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.93, BookBaby

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• Life is extraordinarily suave and sweet with certain natural, witty, affectionate people who have unusual distinction and are capable of every vice, but who make a display of none in public and about whom no one can affirm they have a single one. There is something supple and secret about them. Besides, their perversity gives spice to their most innocent occupations, such as taking a walk in the garden at night.

  Marcel Proust

  Witty, Sweet, Night

  Marcel Proust (1957). “Pleasures and days: and other writings”

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• This is the essential evil of vice: it debases a man.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Men, Evil, Essentials

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• I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favor of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology, to purchase and use recreational drugs, to enjoy and purchase so-called 'vices', to be free of intruders, and to privacy.

  Bram Cohen

  Technology, Rights, Political

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• For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.

  Lysander Spooner

  Truth, Government, Would Be

  Lysander Spooner (2006). “Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.

  Edmund Burke

  Wise, Men, Names

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.267

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• Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life, and if Virtue is not its own reward, I don't know any other stipend annexed to it.

  Lord Byron

  Life, Literature, Rewards

  "Lord Byron", www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2008.

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• Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Virtue, Spectacular

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• Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Passion, Power, Literature

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• Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.

  Augustus Hare

  Littles, Too Much, Sometimes

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• It is but a step from companionship to slavery when one associates with vice.

  Hosea Ballou

  Slavery, Steps, Companionship

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• What were once vices are the fashion of the day.

  Seneca the Younger

  Fashion

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• Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite; but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Lying, Men, Expansion

  "Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude".

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• A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

  Horace

  Pride, Purpose, Literature

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• Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Richard Herne Shepherd (1810). “The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ... Ed. ... by Richard Herne Shepherd”, p.244

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• Vices are often habits rather than passions.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Passion, Habit

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• The passions of the young are vices in the old.

  Joseph Joubert

  Time, Passion, Youth

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