quotations about vice
All vices are for a time; for they are excited for the present. The impetuosity of anger is appeased when vengeance has been taken; the pleasure of the body puts an end to lust; desire is destroyed either by the full enjoyment of the objects which it seeks, or by the excitement of other affections; ambition, when it has gained the honours which it wished for, loses its strength; likewise the other vices are unable to stand their ground and remain, but they are ended by the very enjoyment which they desire. Therefore they withdraw and return. But virtue is perpetual, without any intermission; nor can he who has once taken it up depart from it.
LACTANTIUS
The Sacred Writings of Lactantius
His thoughts were low;
To vice industrious; but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Do but see his vice;
'Tis to his virtues a just equinox,
The one as long as the other.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Othello
No man e'er reached the heights of vice at first.
JUVENAL
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit and Humor, Odd Comparisons and Proverbs
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
Ah me! from real happiness we stray,
By vice bewilder'd; vice which always leads.
However fair at first, to wilds of woe.
JAMES THOMSON
Agamemnon
He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
My faults and vices are legion (that means I have a lot of them), and for some reason I don't have any problem confessing it to you. Maybe it is because I figure all of my shortcomings are so obvious to everyone, it's just better for me to go ahead and come clean about it.
LARRY CASE
"Keep it fun for young turkey hunters", Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 13, 2017
Vices are of two kinds, the beastly and the devilish. By his beastly vices, man puts himself below the beasts; the devilish vices have a degree of wickedness that goes far beyond the human.
IMMANUEL KANT
Lectures on Ethics
Inherent vice is a characteristic intrinsic to an object that contributes to its self-destruction; essentially, it causes the object to self-destruct.
LAIRD BORRELLI-PERSSON
"A Conservator's View of Rei Kawakubo", Vogue, April 24, 2017