We bow with resignation beneath the tempestuous storms of life; but a daily vexation, like a moth eating a garment, consumes our virtue. – Anonymous, Aphorisms; or, A Glance at Human Nature, in Original Maxims, 1820

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place. – Charles Caleb Colton

They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny a sun because it is not always day. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg