Samuel Butler Quotes

It is not easy to do something good, but it is extremely difficult to do something bad.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul.

Be not righteous overmuch.

When virtue is at liberty, so to some extent is vice.

The best things carried to excess are wrong.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Shun all vice, especially card playing.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

In every extreme there is vice and not virtue.

That which is morally wrong will never be politically right.

Moderation in all things..

There is Moral Sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables up to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

I myself have constantly refused to print anything that might countenance vice or promote immorality, though … I might have gotten much money.

We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

I like to think I have good morals, but I still have a little bit of an edgy side.