Incline to nothing vile. [ Motto ]
Vile is the vengeance on the ashes cold,
And envy base to bark at sleeping fame. [ Spenser ]
Expression is the dress of thought, and
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed. [ Pope ]
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile. [ William Shakespeare ]
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity. [ William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I. Sc.1 ]
The tongue is the vile slave's vilest part. [ Juvenal ]
Yes - the same sin that overthrew the angels,
And of all sins most easily besets
Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:
The vile are only vain; the great are proud. [ Byron ]
O what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! [ William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor ]
From powerful causes spring the empiric's gains.
Man's love of life, his weakness, and his pains;
These first induce him the vile trash to try,
Then lend his name that other men may buy. [ Crabbe ]
Oh, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes, never look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier! [ William Shakespeare ]
I have heard they are the most lewd impostors,
Made of all terms and shreds, no less beliers
Of great men's favours than their own vile medicines,
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths;
Selling that drug for two pence ere they part.
Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. [ Ben Jonson ]
In all you write be neither low nor vile: The meanest theme may have a proper style. [ Dryden ]
Nought so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give. [ William Shakespeare ]
Whatever passes away is too vile to be the price of time, which is itself the price of eternity. [ Massillon ]
There are some vile and contemptible men who, allowing themselves to be conquered by misfortune, seek a refuge in death. [ Agathon ]
The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality. [ Ruskin ]