Michel de Montaigne Quotes

It is a proof of our natural bias to evil, that gain is slower and harder than loss in all things good; but in all things bad getting is quicker and easier than getting rid of.

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

We don't see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it - everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life.

Sin will pluck on sin.

No one ever reached the worst of a vice at one leap.

The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known.

One of the most basic factors in sports is that winning becomes a habit, and losing is the same way. When failure starts to feel normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won't have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find you. Count on it.

Vice is a creature of such hideous mien... that the more you see it the better you like it.

Gambling is a cancer on the soul of our nation.

Although Drunkenness be justly termed a vice which the Salvages are ignorant of, yet the benefit is very great that comes to the planters by the sale of strong liquor to the Salvages, who are much taken with the delight of it; for they will pawn their wits, to purchase the acquaintance of it.

Never will there be grief enough over the corruption of morals so extensively increasing and promoted by irreligious and obscene writings, theatrical spectacles and meretricious houses established almost everywhere; by other depraved arts and monstrous portents of every error disseminated in all directions; by the abominable impurities of all vices and crimes growing constantly and the deadly virus of unbelief and indifferentism spread far and wide; by contempt for ecclesiastical authority

Gambling was carried on extensively, and the saloons were full... mostly every one seemed bent on debauchery and dissipation... There appears to be plenty of money here, and plenty of fools to squander it... I verily believe that there are men here who would murder a fellow-creature for five dollars...

There are certain seasons in the course of human affairs, when Genius, Virtue, and Patriotism, seems to nod over the vices of the times.

Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.

No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.

Vice is its own reward.

Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

Pride is the king of vices...it is the first of the pallbearers of the soul...other vices destroy only their opposite virtues, as wantonness destroys chastity; greed destroys temperance; anger destroys gentleness; but pride destroys all virtues.

The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.

Where a reputation for intolerance is more feared than a reputation for vice itself, all manner of evil may be expected to flourish.

Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of disordered affections--this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other vices but impair the soul--this demolishes her two chief faculties, the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way--this makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

It is but a step from companionship to slavery when one associates with vice.