Vexations.—Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so also the smallest affairs disturb us most.—Montaigne.
Vice.—As to the general design of providence, the two extremes of vice may serve (like two opposite biases) to keep up the balance of things. When we speak against one capital vice, we ought to speak against its opposite; the middle betwixt both is the point for virtue.—Pope.
This is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.—Chapin.
It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door be able to say: "No room for your ladyship: pass on."—Bulwer-Lytton.
I ne'er heard yet that any of these bolder vices wanted less impudence to gainsay what they did, than to perform it first.—Shakespeare.
Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.—Burke.
One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.—Bulwer-Lytton.
Vicissitudes.—We do not marvel at the sunrise of a joy, only at its sunset! Then, on the other hand, we are amazed at the commencement of a sorrow-storm; but that it should go off in gentle showers we think quite natural.—Richter.
Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success,—to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd; to that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident; to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it.—Thackeray.
Victory.—Victory or Westminster Abbey.—Nelson.