Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Vice
Vices, like beasts, are fond of none but those that feed them.
—Samuel Butler
Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.
—William Hazlitt
The vices operate like age,—bring on disease before its time, and in the prime of youth, leave the character broken and exhausted.
—Junius
Vice leaves repentance in the soul like an ulcer in the flesh which is always scratching and lacerating itself.
—Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne
Every great vice is like a pike in a pond, that devours virtues and lesser vices.
—Sir Thomas Overbury
He that is deeply engaged in vice, is like a man laid fast in a bag, who, by a faint and lazy struggling to get out, does but spend his strength to any purpose, and sinks himself the deeper in it: the only way is, by a resolute and vigorous effort to spring out, if possible, at once.
—John Tillotson