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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes

Dr. Johnson in conversation, April 15, 1778, reported in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1791) p. 948.
Criticism

“Self-pity, he said, is the most demoralizing of all vices.”
Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 24 (p. 244)

Source: Demian (1919), p. 147
Context: Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of "permitted" and "forbidden." You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered "forbidden." The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. Each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden — forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

Biden at the 2008 Vice Presidential debate. Biden-Palin Vice Presidential debates http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/, October 2, 2008
2000s

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
Source: Wealth, War, and Wisdom

“Joe Biden would probably be running a Denny's if he wasn't Vice President.”
citation needed

“Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him.”
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader

March 30, 1981, after Ronald Reagan was hospitalized. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/04/23/60II/main287292.shtml.
Lt. Col Arthur Freemantle, Part II, CH 5: Longstreet, p. 130
The Killer Angels (1974)