Character Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

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

— Honore de Balzac

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

— Laura Ingalls Wilder

We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that…

— Thomas Paine

Our vices are the excesses of our virtues.

— Pleasant Rowland

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.

— Will Durant

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

— Marquis de Sade

Our virtues make us; but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times

— Hilary Mantel

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

— Samuel Butler

There are some persons on whom virtue sits almost as ungraciously as vice.

— Dominique Bouhours

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.

— Denis Diderot

I think it is extremely interesting to think that, in some cases, vice might be, finally, more redemptive than virtue.

— Katy Lederer

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

— Alexander Pope