Famous quotes containing the word vices:
“Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest “swell,” but he simply cannot buy the right things.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life’s circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently—without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Power corrupts ... when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before. The will to power ... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)