Laura Ingalls Wilder Quotes

Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

In every extreme there is vice and not virtue.

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Be not righteous overmuch.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

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

Most virtue lies between two vices.

The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation.

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

The best things carried to excess are wrong.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.

Moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency . . .

One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.

Just as lavishness leads easily to presumption, so does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption.

The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.

Oh, 'tis not my qualities they object to! 'Tis my lack of vice.

The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation," she said. "Evil is easy to fight. Lack of wisdom… that is very hard indeed.

One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame.

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