Theodore Dalrymple Quotes

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.

Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many it is almost a vice.

The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.

Vice is a dreary business. And virtue is not a lot of fun, either.

Virtue sometimes pretends. Vice is always sincere.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

Oh, 'tis not my qualities they object to! 'Tis my lack of vice.

We must now examine whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones. I think it's clear already that this is so, but we must look into it further, since the argument concerns no ordinary topic, but the way we ought to live.

It depends on education--that holder of the keys which the Almighty hath put into our hands--to open the gates which lead to virtue or to vice, to happiness or misery.

The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.

There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.

One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame.

Vice deceives us when dressed in the garb of virtue.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.

Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.

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

Virtue steals, like a guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart.

Goodness is equally hateful to the wicked, as vice is to the virtuous.

Virtue may not always make a Face handsome, but Vice will certainly make it ugly.

How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.