Society and the World

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

The moment of greatest peril is the moment of victory.

All victories breed hate, and that over your superior is foolish or fatal.

The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides.

The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides.

There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.

Sometimes Virtue starves, while Vice is fed.

Sometimes Virtue starves, while Vice is fed.

I prefer an accommodating vice to an obstinate virtue.

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

There are amiable vices and obnoxious virtues.

Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.

Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.

Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.

When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we leave them.

and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Vice knows she’s ugly, so puts on her Mask.

It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging.

So in the wicked there’s no vice Of which the saints have not a spice.

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.

Truth emerges more readily from error than confusion.