The world has long ago settled that morality and virtue are what bring men peace at the last. ‘Be virtuous,’ says the copy-book, ‘and you will be happy.’ Surely if a reputed virtue fails often in this respect it is only an insidious form of vice, and if a reputed vice brings no very serious mischief on a man’s later years it is not so bad a vice as it is said to be. Unfortunately, though we are all of a mind about the main opinion that virtue is what tends to happiness, and vice what ends in sorrow, we are not so unanimous about details.
– Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh, Chapter 19.