Vice and Virtue

Virtue is not a mushroom that springeth up of itself in one night, when we are asleep or regard it not, but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it. Neither is vice a spirit that will be conjured away with a charm, slain by a single blow, or despatched by one stab. Who, then, will be so foolish as to leave the eradicating of vice, and the planting in of virtue into its place, to a few years or weeks? Yet he who procrastinates his repentance and amendment grossly does so; with his eyes open, he abridges the time allotted for the longest and most important work he has to perform; he is a fool.— Barrow