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Vice is moral weakness

• Vice:  A moral fault or weakness in someone’s character. Cambridge Dictionary
• Vice:  Bad or immoral behaviour or habits. Merriam Webster
• Vice: Immoral conduct; depraved or degrading behaviour. Dictionary.com
• Weakness,  Morality and ethics,  Sin,  Temptation,  Evil,  Morality and ethics

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Vice is the antithesis of virtue

• Virtue seeks the greatest distance from vice. Edward Counsel
• Every deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue. E. H. Chapin
• Virtue

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Virtue and vice are man-made concepts

• Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised. Osamu Dazai

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Vice is part of man’s nature

• Vice is man’s nature: virtue is a habit–or a mask. William Hazlitt
• There is more than a morsel of truth in the saying, “He who hates vice hates mankind.” MacNeile Dixon
• 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. David Hume
• There will be vice as long as there are men. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
• Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual. William Ellery Channing

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The seed of vice is temptation

• The general tendency is to be censorious of the vices to which one has not been tempted. Rebecca West
• It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations. Walter Bagehot
• Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.  George Bernard Shaw
• Temptation

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Practicing vice can come at a cost …

• Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains. Charles Caleb Colton
• Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.  Marquis De Vauvenargues
• The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys. Charles Caleb Colton
• Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves. Norman Macdonald
• How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues. Plutarch

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… especially if it becomes an addiction …

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

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… and then vice turns delight to punishment

• Vices are their own punishment. Aesop
• Vice is like a fury to the vicious mind, and turns delight itself to punishment. Ben Jonson

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Vices can be infectious

• We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates. Denis Diderot

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It’s a vice to be too fixated on virtue

• I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.  Carl Jung
• 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. Charles Caleb Colton
• Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.  Friedrich Nietzsche

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Vice is sometimes virtue taken to excess

• The excess of virtue is a vice.  Greek Proverb
• The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.  Samuel Butler
• Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! Charles Dickens
• Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience. Adam Smith
• Excess

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Virtues in others can be more annoying than vices

• The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues. Elizabeth Taylor
• I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue. Moliere

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… especially if on ostentatious displayed

• As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. Albert Einstein

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It’s your virtues, not vices, that often lead you astray

• It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster. Rebecca West

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Vices can contain the seeds of good  – especially if practiced in moderation

• Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.  Samuel Butler
• Many virtues are but disguised vices. Norman Macdonald
• Our virtues are most often but our vices disguised. François de la Rochefoucauld
• There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. Oliver Goldsmith
• The vices of some men are magnificent.  Charles Lamb
• Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Goodness,  Moderation

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Vices can appear as virtues

• Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.  Lord Chesterfield

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Vices are often more interesting than virtues – especially in others

• I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores. Moliere
• No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. Bertrand Arthur William Russell
• Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps. Quentin Crisp
• The evil that men do lives on the front pages of greedy newspapers, but the good is oft interred apathetically inside. Brooks Atkinson

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People with no vices tend to have few virtues

• It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. Abraham Lincoln
• What makes Existence really nice is Virtue–with a dash of Vice. Harry Graham

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Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again

• What were once vices are the fashion of the day.  Seneca
• A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime. Will Durant

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If we only only focus on correcting our vices, there’s no time to improve our virtues

• So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born. Edward Dahlberg

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The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue

• The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.  Bergen Evans
• The virtue of some people consists wholly in condemning the vices in others.  Herbert Samuel
• Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots. Petit-Senn
• Being against evil doesn’t make you good. Ernest Hemingway

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You cannot become virtuous merely by excluding vice

• When it comes to practicing good ethics, saying no to a vice is not good enough. A quality life is never achieved by focusing on the elimination of what is wrong. True success requires you to focus your mental, emotional, and spiritual energies on pursuing that which is right and good. Trying to become virtuous merely by excluding vice is as unrealistic as trying to cultivate roses simply by eliminating weeds. Gary Ryan Blair

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The fear of punishment suppresses vice – but also suspends virtue

• The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue. William Hazlitt
• If we escape punishment for our vices, why should we complain if we are not rewarded for our virtues? John Churton Collins

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Vices are often habits rather than a source of real passion or pleasure

• Vices are often habits rather than passions. Antoine Rivarol
• Some loves are like a vice that has ceased to give pleasure. Mason Cooley
• Habit,  Passion,  Pleasure

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Be aware of your vices

• Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices. Benjamin Franklin

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Weed out your vices …

• We would be well on the way to perfection if we could weed out one vice from ourselves each year. Thomas a Kempis
• Think no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may over look it.  Confucius
• We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift. Seneca
• Let thy vices die before thee. Benjamin Franklin
• Life is gardening

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… and plant virtues in their place

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

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One big vice keeps others at bay …

• One big vice in a man is apt to keep out of a great many smaller ones. Bret Harte

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… or does it?

• Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk. Blaise Pascal

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Don’t practice more than one vice at a time

• Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners – your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards – who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute. Thornton Wilder
• Here’s a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once. Tallulah Bankhead
• What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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Idleness is the beginning of all vices

• Idleness is the beginning of all vices. Proverb
• Idleness

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Hatred and envy is a vice

• Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures. Theodore Roosevelt
• Hate

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Gluttony is a vice

• Gluttony is not a secret vice. Orson Welles
• Gluttony

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Lying is a vice

• Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! William Shakespeare
• The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt. Benjamin Franklin
• Lying

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Pride is a vice

• Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. Alexander Pope
• 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. Erwin Schrodinger
• To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote. Benjamin Franklin
• Pride

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Poverty is a vice

• Let us be done with thinking poverty is a virtue. It is a common vice.  Catherine Ponder
• Poverty

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Swearing is a vice

• The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it. George Washington

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Ambition is a vice – or is it?

• Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues.Quintilian
• There is scarce any passion so heartily decried by moralists and satirists, as ambition; and yet, methinks, ambition is not a vice but in a vicious mind: in a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its color from the character in which it is mixed. Ambition is a desire of superiority; and a man may become superior, either by making others less or himself greater. Fulke Greville
• Ambition is not a vice of little people. Michel de Montaigne
• Ambition

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Hypocrisy is a vice

• The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. William Hazlitt
• Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
• Hypocrisy

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Freedom without wisdom or virtue is a vice

• But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Edmund Burke
• Wisdom

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The need for certainty is a vice

• The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. Bertrand Russell
• The need for certainty

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Selfishness is a vice

• Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself. Henry Ward Beecher
• Selfishness

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The desire for power as a vice

• Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic. Bertrand Russell

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Gossip is a vice

• Gossip is vice enjoyed vicariously. Elbert Hubbard
• Gossip

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Cruelty is a vice

• Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. George Eliot
• Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices. Michel de Montaigne
• Cruelty

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Extremism – and moderation is a vice

• Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
• A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. Thomas Paine
• Moderation

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Self-pity is a vice

• Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins – is self-pity. self-pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred’s a subset of self-pity and not the other way around – ‘ It destroys everything around it, except itself. Stephen Fry
• Self-pity

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Advice where it isn’t asked for is a vice

• No vice is so bad as advice. Marie Dressler
• Advice

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Envy is a vice

• Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil’s alphabet – the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies. Michel de Montaigne
• There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as ‘moral indignation,’ which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. Erich Fromm
• Envy

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Secrecy is a vice

• The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy. Joseph Pulitzer

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Ignorance is vice

• In other living creatures ignorance of self is nature ; in man it is vice. Boethius
• Ignorance

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More vices

• The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity. Oscar Wilde
• It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd. Henry Miller

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• Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved. Charles Caleb Colton
• Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Francis Bacon
• Minor vices lead to major ones, but minor virtues stay put. Mignon McLaughlin
• We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtues that he cannot. K. Chesterton
• We are more inclined to regret our virtues than our vices; but only the very honest will admit this. Holbrook Jackson
• Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both their parents. George Savile
• In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice. Marquis de Sade
• Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly. Mignon McLaughlin
• Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have. Alexander Pope
• Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues. Napoleon Bonaparte

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• He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.  Winston Churchill
• Virtue is learned at a mother’s knee; vice at other joints.
• There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.  Woody Allen
• He hadn’t a single redeeming vice. Oscar Wilde
• When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices. Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld
• I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.  Mark Twain
• When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices. George Bernard Shaw
• It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. Abraham Lincoln

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