Aphorisms Galore!

Vice and Virtue

161 aphorisms  ·  5 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/gpt56czo  ·  submitted 1997

That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.

Dorothy Parker, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/9te2rxr1  ·  submitted 1997

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent

William Blake, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/9uv5rp2p  ·  submitted 1997

He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.

William Blake, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/e2igybvl  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Three Versions of Judas", in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/ubsgpw2q  ·  submitted 1997

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.

James Branch Cabell, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/l4pyn7j8  ·  submitted 1997

I will answer anything I can with honor, but not about others.

John Brown, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/6qdfb14w  ·  submitted 1997

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/iqolobqc  ·  submitted 1997

In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.

Robert Byrne, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/k4hosucr  ·  submitted 1997

Don't wait for the last judgment; it takes place every day.

Albert Camus, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/riquczeo  ·  submitted 1997

Foundation (paperback)

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/xjufzea6  ·  submitted 1997

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Francis Bacon, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/zl0ikbnv  ·  submitted 1997

Coward: one who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

Ambrose Bierce, in Vice and Virtue and War and Peace

tiny.ag/ca72ttqk  ·  submitted 1997

It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

Ambrose Bierce, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/pu94ynqw  ·  submitted 1997

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Dean Martin, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/ssgp4mwz  ·  submitted 1997

Be nice to people on your way up because you'll need them on your way down.

Wilson Mizner, in Success and Failure and Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/1jfp82uv  ·  submitted 1997

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

Molière, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/nhmiijfj  ·  submitted 1997

I drink to make other people interesting.

George Jean Nathan, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/i6tlcabi  ·  submitted 1997

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.

Robert Orben, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/hf615shl  ·  submitted 1997

On the whole, human beings want to be good -- but not too good and not quite all the time.

George Orwell, in Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/5nmjgd34  ·  submitted 1997

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

Friedrich Nietzsche, in Vice and Virtue