Daily Inspiration Quote by George Farquhar

“Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards” lands with the clean snap of Restoration-era cynicism: a moral proverb flipped until it reveals the wiring underneath. Farquhar, writing for a stage crowded with rakes, heiresses, and social climbers, isn’t offering comfort; he’s exposing the transactional logic that polite society pretends to despise. The line mimics the pious maxim “virtue is its own reward,” then poisons it with symmetry. If virtue can be self-sustaining, why not vice? The joke is that the culture already behaves as if that were true.

Its intent is double-edged. On one side, it’s a warning: wrongdoing doesn’t just bring external punishment; it contains a built-in payoff that makes it seductive. On the other, it’s an indictment of a moral system so performative that “reward” is reduced to feeling - the thrill of transgression, the rush of getting away with it, the private sense of power. Farquhar’s subtext is that ethical behavior and unethical behavior alike can be motivated by appetite, not principle. Virtue can be vanity. Crime can be pleasure. Both can be self-justifying stories we tell ourselves.

Context matters: late-17th/early-18th-century comedy thrives on the gap between public virtue and private desire. Farquhar’s plays often treat social life as a marketplace of reputation, marriage, and money. In that world, consequences are negotiable, especially for the charming and well-connected. The line works because it refuses the audience the easy exit of moral superiority. It suggests that society’s real “reward system” isn’t justice; it’s sensation and status - and crime, practiced by the right people, can pay instantly.