Blades Quote by Henry David Thoreau

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can…

— Henry David Thoreau

Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs.

— Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Our vices are the excesses of our virtues.

— Pleasant Rowland

When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!

— Honore de Balzac

Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

— Henry David Thoreau

When our vices quit us, we flatter ourselves with the belief that it is we who quit them

— Francois La Rochefoucauld

In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.

— Samuel Butler

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

— Oliver Goldsmith

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

— Marquis de Sade

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

— Alexander Pope

Every blade has two edges; he who wounds with one wounds himself with the other.

— Victor Hugo