“The notion of good and bad is only in people's minds for there is only virtue and excess. Happiness and wisdom are virtues, sadness and foolishness are vices. "Good and bad" is an ethical judgment of "decent" persons, and criticizing is their vice.”

“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”

“A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice”

“On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.”

“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”