Thornton Wilder Quotes

They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another.

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

Folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

Tolerance is a virtue, but, like all virtues, when exaggerated it transforms itself into a vice.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

Virtue lies half way between two opposite vices.

It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.

The virtues of society are the vices of the saints.

I believe that I am God's exact intention. It's that balance of virtue and vice.

The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?

If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, piousness is virtue paying tribute to itself.

We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.

So many people say, "I'm a good person!" Like, why are you a good person? To be a good person you have to actively be good.

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

Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots.

Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia, - let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we eventually become saints and bores!

a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.

A man has virtues enough if he deserves pardon for his faults on account of them.

It makes you feel very virtuous when you forgive people, doesn't it?

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.