For nothing is evil in the beginning.
I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
If we mix only a moderate minority share of turds with the raisins each year, probably no one will recognize what will ultimately become a very large collection of turds.
No man becomes bad all at once.
Small crimes always precede great ones. Never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness.
It seemed to me that every adult did something terrible sooner or later. And every child, I thought, sooner or later becomes an adult.
No one becomes depraved all at once.
Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.
There is a method in man's wickedness; it grows up by degrees.
The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.
