TCR 120 - The Company One Keeps

TCR 120 [2]

If a person spends his time with thieves or pirates, 
he ends up by becoming like them; 
if he lives with adulterers and whores, 
he ends up by thinking adultery of no consequence. 
Again if he mixes with terrorists, 
he ends up by thinking nothing 
of using violence on anyone. 
All evils are contagious, 
and can be likened to a plague 
which infects people 
simply by their being exposed to the victims' breath; 
or to a cancer or gangrene which spreads, 
and makes first the surrounding parts, 
and then those further and further away, rot, 
until the whole body is destroyed. 
It is the pleasures of evil, 
to which everyone is prone from birth, 
that cause this.