A Man for all Seasons: The Money Quote

With his family visiting him in the Tower for what they all know will be the last time, Thomas More’s scholarly daughter tries to logic him out of his stubborness by sandbagging him with an accusation of Pride, one of the seven deadlies. He fires back with all seven:

Margaret: In any State that was half good. you would be raised up high, not here [in the dungeon,] for what you’ve done already. It’s not your fault the State’s three-quarters bad. Then if you elect to suffer for it, you elect yourself a hero.

More: That’s very neat. But look now…If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we’d live like animals in the happy land that needs no heroes. But in fact we see the avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility , chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all…why then perhaps we must stand fast a little — even at the risk of being heroes.