vice

I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.

In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I__e a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy__pium and other miserable beauties.

Believe me, Eugenie, the words "vice" and "virtue" supply us only with local meanings. There is no action, however bizarre you may picture it, that is truly criminal; or one that can really be called virtuous. Everything depends on our customs and on the climates we live in. What is considered a crime here is often a virtue a few hundred leagues away; and the virtues of another hemisphere might, quite conversely, be regarded as crimes among us. There is no atrocity that hasn't been deified, no virtue that hasn't been stigmatized.

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.

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.

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.

Hypocrisy a homage is true, That vice pays to virtue, Be man - himself so true, That no false does he brew.

In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.

One doesn__ have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man.