"The only pleasure in gambling is to win, and this cannot be a satisfactory pleasure, since it can only be enjoyed at the expense of your antagonist." Source: St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Random House, Inc., 2002.
"Vice mimics virtue, and the tares strive to be thought wheat, growing like the wheat in appearance, but being detected by good judges from the taste." Source: St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures
"It is not enough for eternal life to sweep the house clean of deadly sin. One must fill it with virtue that is grounded in love, and not merely in fear." Source: St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, Paulist Press, 1980 The Dialogue was dictated by Catherine over a period of five days. Three [...]
"But while extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, you must also guard against an extreme into which some people fall, who, in their desire to speak evil of no one, actually uphold and speak well of vice." Source: St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Random House, Inc., 2002. [...]
"My daughter, I entreat you never speak evil of any, either directly or indirectly; beware of ever unjustly imputing sins or faults to your neighbor, of needlessly disclosing his real faults, of exaggerating such as are overt, of attributing wrong motives to good actions, of denying the good that you know to exist in another, [...]
"One of the most evil dispositions possible is that which satirizes and turns everything to ridicule. God abhors this vice, and has sometimes punished it in a marked manner. Nothing is so opposed to Charity, much more to a devout spirit, as contempt and depreciation of one’s neighbor, and where satire and ridicule exist contempt [...]
"The holy virtues are like the ladder of Jacob and the unholy vices are like the chains that fell off the chief apostle Peter. The virtues lead from one to another and carry heavenward the man who chooses him. Vices on the other hand beget and stifle one another." Source: St. John Climacus, The [...]
"Two things particularly further improvement – to withdraw oneself forcibly from those vices to which nature is viciously inclined, and to work fervently for those graces which are most needed." Source: Thomas a’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Dover Thrift Editions, 1940.
"Vices do not submit without a struggle. For however well one maintains the conflict, and however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals in some evil thing, which, if it does not find ready expression in act, slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought; and therefore his peace is not [...]