Charles Dickens Quotes

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.

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

The bad propensities of human nature are only kept within bounds when they are allowed no scope for their indulgence

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.

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

Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have.

Vice is a peripatetic, always in progression.

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

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

Oh, I have a very pure soul. It's only my private parts that have gotten me into trouble".

The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our moral nature.

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

Lord, for the erring thoughtNot into evil wrought:Lord, for the wicked willBetrayed and baffled still:For the heart from itself kept,Our thanksgiving accept.

We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy.

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.

And angling too, that solitary vice, What Izaak Walton sings or says: The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

If I have one vice and I can call it nothing else it is not able to say 'no'.

Virtue needs a director and guide. Vice can be learned even without a teacher.

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Virtue by calculation is the virtue of vice.

Kindness steers no easy course. Attributing it to character, we seldom recognize the secret efforts of a noble heart, whereas we reward really wicked people for the evil they refrain from committing.

Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly.

In avoiding one vice fools rush into the opposite extreme.

There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.