Richard Henry Tawney Quotes

The soul may be compared to a field of battle, where the armies are ready every moment to encounter. Not a single vice but has a more powerful opponent, and not one virtue but may be overborne by a combination of vices.

The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man's course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.

Classical tragedy was the war between good and evil. We wanted evil to be defeated and good to be victorious. But the battle in modern tragedy is between good and good. And no matter which side wins, we'll still be heartbroken.

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life - and if Virtue is not its own reward I don't know any other stipend annexed to it.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

It's fun to play a character who lives on the edge, who is an ethical and moral mess, and is paying the price for some of his actions.

I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.

It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted down, but not solved; - although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment for his conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although his libertine clients had done precisely what he had expected, precisely what he most wished, and precisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he hated them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul.

But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

Virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue.

Even without them touching me, I feel dirty about what I do. Alex does even filthier things but says it all washes off with soap. I don’t believe that. I think it all leaves stains. Indelible stains.

One of my themes is that there is good and evil in everyone. I was not out to make these guys heroes. I really don't believe in heroes. The best of people have a dark side and it's a constant struggle for the better side to survive and to thrive.

This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.

A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior.

I don't think sexual repression leads to violence, but I can see the situation where you're trying very hard to be very religious and to be good but pornography exerts a strong force on you, and one way to get further away from it would be to immerse yourself in a strong religious system.

Who was it who said that every virtue contains its corresponding vice? C.S. Lewis? Virginia Woolf? You forget. But it has always worried you that what the virtue of wit contained was the vice of scorn.

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