There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of society are the vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet

Essay (1841), “Circles,” Essays: First Series, No. 10
    (Source)