Publilius Syrus Quotes

Vices that are familiar we pardon, and only new ones reprehend.

We pardon familiar vices.

When virtue is at liberty, so to some extent is vice.

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

He who seeks to regulate everything by law, is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful.

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

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified

Those words, temperate and moderate, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.

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

Tolerance is a virtue, but, like all virtues, when exaggerated it transforms itself into a vice.

Vice is its own reward.

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

In vain will you fly from one vice if in your wilfulness you embrace another.

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

The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys.

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

Flattery was formerly a vice; it has now become the fashion.

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

A vice is merely a pleasure to which somebody has objected.

We don't see the banality, but we accept banality. We accept it as inevitable, and it's not.

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

There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled.

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