To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.

[Virtus est vitium fugere et sapientia prima stultitia caruisse.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]

Epistles, Book 1, Epistle 1, l. 41 (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)