Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen to oft familiar with her face We first endure then pity then embrace.
The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues or what we have always esteemed such into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.
He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain and yet distinguish and yet prefer that which is truly better he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial and trial is by what is contrary.
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.
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
What maintains one vice would bring up two children.
No one ever reached the worst of a vice at one leap.
One is never so happy or so unhappy as one thinks.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen to oft familiar with her face We first endure then pity then embrace.
Many without punishment but none without sin.
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Vice is its own reward.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees As brooks make rivers rivers run to seas.
The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues or what we have always esteemed such into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.
He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain and yet distinguish and yet prefer that which is truly better he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial and trial is by what is contrary.
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.
We are double-edged blades and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.
Virtue is its own reward. Theres a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.