Virtue and Vice
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9.The nature and effect of vice on the vicious
9a.Vice as self-injury and as privation
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 137One should not dishonour oneself or one's maker by base conduct.read · scan
- p. 171–172Such a man is impious, unjust, abject.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 263Wickedness harms only its possessor, who can release himself from it by choice; it does not harm the universe.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 27–28Pride, ambition, cruelty, curiosity, sloth, envy, anger shown as perverted imitations of divine virtues.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 64–69He was thought idle and unprofitable rather than bad; his fault was doing nothing, not doing ill.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CompensationVol. 5
- p. 95–96Cheats and thieves defraud themselves; the real reward of labor is virtue and knowledge.read · scan
- p. 99–100There is no penalty to virtue or wisdom; vice is absence of being; the criminal diminishes in nature.read · scan
Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of GrassVol. 39
- p. 404Catalogues vices and cruelties, insisting no deed goes unrealized or unreturned in its consequences.read · scan
9b.Vice as habit, corruption and the descent into degradation
Plato, CritoVol. 2
- p. 42Life in disorderly Thessaly would be degrading; existence is not worth having on such terms.read · scan
Plato, PhaedoVol. 2
- p. 73–74Gluttony, drunkenness, injustice and violence fix souls into animal natures like asses, wolves and hawks.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 144Yielding to temptation strengthens dissolute habits.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 264–265Best not to taste lying, hypocrisy, luxury and pride; abiding with vice is a pestilence of the understanding.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 17–18Divine example given to vice lessens shame in committing it.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 157War taught the people to delight in robbery and manslaughter, corrupting their manners and contempt for laws.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 16The young brother cannot yet relish virtuous employment and passes his time in dissipation.read · scan
- p. 63Luigi, warned against the courtesan, falls into vice and dishonourable courses, neglects his talents, and slights his benefactor.read · scan
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the SciencesVol. 34
- p. 47Belief that brute and human souls are alike leads feeble minds from the path of virtue.read · scan
Pierre Corneille, PolyeucteVol. 26
- p. 105Felix admits noble thoughts die still-born while base ones scorn his soul.read · scan
John Milton, Poems Written at Horton, 1632-1638Vol. 4
- p. 44–47Sensual indulgence deforms man; victims boast of their disfigurement, unaware of misery.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 312–313Casuists submit decisions to corrupt reason and will, so all corruption of nature shapes conduct.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 260–261The best are not exempt from vice unless they watch and strive; wilful wallowing in vice is condemned.read · scan
- p. 261–262Indulging vice does not confer the godly man's virtues, like a dog licking a child's filth.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 74–75Young men cast off modesty and sobriety, thinking vice manly; corrupters lead them into fashionable vices.read · scan
Jean Racine, PhaedraVol. 26
- p. 175–177Hippolytus argues that vice, like virtue, advances by degrees, so a virtuous man cannot suddenly become a criminal.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 32–33A promising, learned youth declines into vice; Franklin contrasts him with his own sobriety and industry.read · scan
- p. 91–92A vicious man cannot be called a man of sense; virtue is not secure until practice becomes habit.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 85Independent workmen are less exposed to the temptations of bad company that ruin the morals of manufactory workers.read · scan
Edmund Burke, On Taste: Introductory DiscourseVol. 24
- p. 22–23The vices and passions that pervert judgment elsewhere also corrupt it in matters of taste.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 204–205Approving what the Assembly must bear is the choice of a vitiated mind; the moral taste shocked.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 35–37Fears he might again desert virtue's way and exalt the brute over the man.read · scan
- p. 217–220Thoughtless follies ruined a gifted man's nameread · scan
William Wordsworth, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 610–612Among lawless men he absorbed their vices; his genius and moral frame were impaired.read · scan
- p. 620Luke slackens in duty and falls to evil courses in the dissolute city, ending in shame and flight.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 291He admits the enterprise unworthy but says one must satisfy caprices, showing vice.read · scan
- p. 291–293The path of iniquity is broad but not easy, full of thorns, tedious even when downhill; Rodrigo resolves on evil partner.read · scan
- p. 454–455Once-insolent bravoes are humbled by hunger, begging with the hands that had threatened.read · scan
- p. 462–463Honest workers forced into confinement mix with those bred to idleness, roguery and violence.read · scan
- p. 479–480The Unnamed changed from a scourge to an example and benefactor; his household reformed.read · scan
- p. 483–484His ruffians depart or reform into peaceful lives; some return to trades, others turn to plunder or war.read · scan
- p. 564Contagion brutalized men's minds, stripping them of compassion and social respect.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 342Social corruption begins in imagination and intellect, then spreads through affections to appetites, destroying sensibility to pleasure.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 87Analytic habit is a worm at the root of the passions and virtues.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 193Twenty years of vice and drunkenness ruined his prospects until reason and resolution reformed him.read · scan
- p. 244Ruined ranger and Russell exemplify the dissolute life of drifting Americans and English in California.read · scan
- p. 244–246Russell's misconduct and the lad's gambling and horse stealing illustrate vicious lives ending in disgrace.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Twenty-Four Years AfterVol. 23
- p. 401–402Harry May goes the road to ruin, while Nat turns sober and grave.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 113Vulgarity as callousness leading to bestial habit and crime; noble sympathy and just feeling as virtue.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, The Study of PoetryVol. 28
- p. 85–86Burns moralises on illicit love hardening and petrifying the feeling.read · scan
9c.Conscience, remorse and shame
Confucius, The Sayings of ConfuciusVol. 44
- p. 37A gentleman knows no sorrow or fear because he finds no sin in his heart.read · scan
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 182–185The wicked flatter themselves, devise iniquity and abhor not evil, having no fear of God.read · scan
Sophocles, AntigoneVol. 8
- p. 294–296Messenger's moral: stubbornness of heart is man's worst ill; Creon recognizes his rash plans and sin.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 124–125Hardening of the understanding and the sense of shame is a vice; men wrongly call shamelessness strength of mind.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 24He made himself worse than he was, reversing shame, for fear of dispraise for innocence and chastity.read · scan
The Story of the Volsungs and NiblungsVol. 49
- p. 356–357Sons wrongly kill Erp and later realise the evil; his words about hand helping hand prove true.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 126Virgil rebukes taking pleasure in vulgar wrangling as fit only for vulgar minds, and forgives Dante's repentant shame.read · scan
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of ChristVol. 7
- p. 360He confesses he lies in vices and is poor in virtues.read · scan
Christopher Marlowe, Edward the SecondVol. 46
- p. 86–87Murderers kill each other; Gurney stabs Lightborn, Mortimer threatens Matrevis; guilt and treachery among conspirators.read · scan
Ben Jonson, The AlchemistVol. 47
- p. 646–647Face admits that nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience.read · scan
Philip Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old DebtsVol. 47
- p. 911Overreach glories in hardness, insensible of conscience, marble to remorse; Lovell is appalled by his toughness.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 301–303Hell is within the heart; a distracted conscience and inner devils show vice as its own torment.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 170Satan is abashed, feeling how awful goodness is and how lovely virtue, pining for his loss.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 43Being full of faults is evil, but unwillingness to recognise them is a greater evil.read · scan
- p. 162Living evil while believing in God is terrible blindness; pride and sloth are the sources of sin.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 54–55A man's conversation may overthrow his persuasion; Christian admits failings yet claims tenderness against sin.read · scan
- p. 314–315Honest bequeaths no will: his honesty goes with him; Good-conscience helps him over the river.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 34Franklin calls his spending of Vernon's money one of the great errata of his life.read · scan
- p. 66He calls his youthful errors and the unhappiness caused to Miss Read a great erratum, which marriage corrected.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 131Many love virtue and hate vice in words yet act wickedly in particulars without remorse.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 106–107Rodrigo's brief compunction and remorse vanish, and he returns to villainy.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 281Cenci boasts of remorseless vice, delighting in others' agony and having no conscience or fear to check him.read · scan
- p. 328–329Conscience is mocked as venal; men sell it for gold and revenge.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 376–377Mixture of genius and pettiness, sobriety and buffoonery, remorse held at bay by sophistry and paltering with conscience.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 307–308The Emperor's bad and good deeds appear before him as faces and recall themselves to him.read · scan
- p. 308–309The Emperor wishes to drown out the voices of his deeds with music.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 426A notorious murderer and coward shows cool impudence.read · scan
9d.Vice as weakness, ignorance or involuntary error
Euripides, HippolytusVol. 8
- p. 320–321Phaedra says men know the right but fail to pursue it, swerving toward delight; she resolves to fight her passion by purity.read · scan
Buddhist WritingsVol. 45
- p. 667Meritorious and demeritorious karma both spring from ignorance.read · scan
- p. 668–669Ignorant man performs meritorious, demeritorious and immovable karma.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 161Philosopher tells people they are in evil case, not knowing good from evil; ignorance of good and evil is the moral sickness.read · scan
- p. 161–162Philosopher's school is a surgery for moral ills; pain, not flattery, is needed; unhappiness is one's own doing since God made men for felicity.read · scan
- p. 166Wicked, unjust, intemperate men do not live as they would and so are not free.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 251Vice is involuntary, so wrongdoers merit gentleness.read · scan
- p. 281One errs in thinking money, pleasure or reputation a good thing.read · scan
- p. 291Expecting bad men not to do wrong is madness; letting them wrong others while expecting none oneself is irrational.read · scan
- p. 296–297No one does wrong except involuntarily, so blame nobody.read · scan
Dante Alighieri, HellVol. 20
- p. 13Indifference to good and evil, living for oneself, is condemned as neither rebellious nor faithful.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King LearVol. 46
- p. 227–228Edmund satirizes man's evasion that lays lechery and knavery on stars rather than himself.read · scan
Philip Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old DebtsVol. 47
- p. 933–938Wellborn says Overreach has courage for ill but lacks true valour to be honest and repent.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 292–293Growing judgment teaches him better while untamed affections make him do worse.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 415Samson argues all wickedness is weakness, so weakness excuses no crime before God or man.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 94Credulity is a natural vice; many believe from superstition or disbelieve from wickedness.read · scan
- p. 309Men never do evil so completely as from religious conviction.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 303–304Heedlessness and boldness are shown as vices that ruin pilgrims.read · scan
Jean Racine, PhaedraVol. 26
- p. 183–185Oenone excuses weakness as natural to mortals, even gods; Phaedra condemns her as flatterer smoothing the path of guilt.read · scan
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household TalesVol. 17
- p. 149–150Snow-white's trusting naivety lets a disguised murderer in despite warnings.read · scan
George Long, The Philosophy of AntoninusVol. 2
- p. 338Wrongdoers offend from ignorance of good and bad; forgiveness is the hardest virtue.read · scan
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