quotations about vice
I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.
MARK TWAIN
Stories
In vices, the very essence of crime -- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another -- is wanting. It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others. Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property. For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
LYSANDER SPOONER
"Vices are not crimes", Niagara Falls Reporter, May 6, 2014
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
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
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
Do but see his vice;
'Tis to his virtues a just equinox,
The one as long as the other.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Othello
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
He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
His thoughts were low;
To vice industrious; but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
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