Kenneth Minogue Quotes

No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.

Virtue sometimes pretends. Vice is always sincere.

When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

A man given to vice is always an idealist.

Satan often paints sin with virtue's colors.

Vice deceives us when dressed in the garb of virtue.

Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.

The Devil may also make use of morality.

Vice knows [its] ugly, so [it] puts on [a] mask.

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

The higher the moral tone, the more suspect the speaker.

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.

Are you honest people or thieves?

He is only honest who is not discovered.

Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices that may accompany it.

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

The vices and the virtues are written in a language the world cannot construe; it reads them in a vile translation, and the translators are Failure and Success.

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.