Vice Quotes

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

The prince must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices without which it would be difficult to save the state.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best.

The Devil invented gambling.

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.

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.

Next to the sin of murder comes the sin of sexual impurity.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of freedom is no virtue.

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

Great men are almost always bad men.

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever; let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.

Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one--the solitary one--that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices--the most hateful. He is the only creature that has pain for sport, knowing it to be pain.

That roguish and cheerful vice, politeness.

Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.

Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: we rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another; and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another.

Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it. It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it. It's left a trail of graft and slime, It don't prohibit worth a dime, It's filled our land with vice and crime. Nevertheless, we're for it.

We are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and peoples.