“He who hates vice, hates mankind.” — Pliny the Younger

“Our virtues are most often but our vices disguised.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist (in Pudd’nhead Wilson)

“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th- century French memoirist and philosopher

“More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.” — Robert Smith Surtees “To many people, virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.” — Ayn Rand, 20th-century Russian/American philosopher and author

“If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had.” — I.F. Stone, 20th-century American journalist

“Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“Sell not virtue to purchase wealth.” — English proverb

“What ought not to be done do not even think of doing.” — Epictetus, ancient Greek historian

“No man should be praised for his goodness if he lacks the strength to be bad; in such cases goodness is usually only the effect of indolence or impotence of will.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“By associating with good and evil persons a man acquires the virtues and vices which they possess, even as the wind blowing over different places takes along good and bad odors.” — The Panchatantra

“The first and the best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.” — Plato, ancient Greek philosopher

“Show me a man without vices and I’ll show you a man without virtues.” — Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century American president