Henry David Thoreau Vices Quotations

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.

Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate ourselves to ourselves, or do we recognize ourselves for the actual men we are? Are we not all great men? Yet what are we actually, to speak of? We live by exaggeration.