Virtue Quotes
The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.
Those who believe that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.
for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use
To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.
Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Perhaps here we have a clue to the reason why royal rule used to exist formerly, namely the difficulty of finding enough men of outstanding virtue.
Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.
Excellence or virtue in a man will be the disposition which renders him a good man and also which will cause him to perform his function well.
Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellowmen, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.
As the Prussian historian Treitschke later complained, the proponents of free trade in Hamburg had 'in German fashion made out of necessity not just a virtue but a theory'.
I would be virtuous for my own sake, though nobody were to know it; as I would be clean for my own sake, though nobody were to see me.
It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.
MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.
Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths there appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue.
To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times.
War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
Well may your heart believe the truths Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
After all, the supreme virtue in all art is soul, perhaps it is the only thing which gives art a right to be.
Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.
The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others' bare.
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.
Prudence is one of the virtues which were called cardinal by the ancient ethical writers.
You want to make people laugh and by virtue of that please them, but when you're instructed to make people laugh and please them, you're too resentful to do it.
