Vice

It is laughable not to flee one's own vice, which is possible, yet to flee the vice of others, which is impossible.

What is vice?

Vice, taken generally, does no harm to the universe;

the condition in which they have mastery over the rational soul is called vice (radhīlah).

and then from these acts of willing there follow many acts of willing that rest upon the first ones, and these are the vices, which are the diseases of the soul.

As for the bounds of the concomitants of the vices, they are the opposites of the bounds of the concomitants of the virtues;

Let us next begin a fresh part of the subject by laying down that the states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds—Vice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality.

Now these various morbid dispositions in themselves do not fall within the limits of Vice, nor yet does Bestiality;

for Vice resembles diseases like dropsy and consumption, whereas Unrestraint is like epilepsy, Vice being a chronic, Unrestraint an intermittent evil.

But once a man is up, he can see how smooth and fair it is, how easy and well-furnished, and pleasanter than the other road, the one that leads to vice—which, this same poet says, may be taken whole and at a stretch from close at hand.

For the one was tricked out by cosmetics into beauty, melting with luxury, and led a whole swarm of pleasures clinging to her;

Or with what other intent are we to suppose that Hesiod composed those verses which all men sing, than to urge the young to virtue—how the road that leads to virtue is at first rough and hard to travel, full of much sweat and toil, and steep?