Jean Racine Quotes

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

The crimes in my books are committed by people who can't keep it together any more. They do something to express their own pain, and that has a terrible effect on somebody else.

One is often guilty by being too just.

Virtue is not photogenic. What is it to be a nice guy? To be nothing, that's what. A big fat zero with a smile for everybody.

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

I always felt like I was doing the right thing.

Being against evil doesn't make you good.

The love of truth has its reward in heaven and even on earth.

It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.

RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .

If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue.

Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.

What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

Crime, like virtue, has its degrees.

The best of causes ruins as quickly as the worst; and the road to Limbo is paved with writers who have done everything I am being sympathetic, not satiric for the very best reasons.

Chastity, like piety, is a uniform grace.

Nothing can be more puritanical in application than the virtues.

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.

One of the most annoying habits of liberals is their tendency to confuse their political agenda with moral virtue.

From a single crime know the nation.

You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish. I reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.

The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute- he simply speaks and does what is right.