Virtue Quotes

[E]xcess in the practice of virtue is no less imperfect than the lack of it.

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.

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.

The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.

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.

It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.

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 only amarantine flower on earth Is virtue.

Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.

The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.

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.

Idleness breeds our better virtues.

Prudence is one of the virtues which were called cardinal by the ancient ethical writers.

Virtue alone is true nobility.

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.

Virtue steals, like a guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart.

Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general; for one link being wanting, the chain is defective.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good. Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving.

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.

Virtue is its own revenge.

Do not let the artificial obliterate the natural; do not let will obliterate destiny; do not let virtue be sacrificed to fame.

The Tao has no place for pettiness, and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said, rectify yourself and be done.

One of the greatest disasters of our time is our universal acceptance of the word "tolerance" as a great virtue.

Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.

He never complained. He seemed to have no instinct for the making much of oneself that complaining requires.

People who don't like cats always seem to think there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them.

Be it mine to draw from wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, that calm of soul which virtue only knows.

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.

Love is a virtue; it grows stronger and purer and less selfish by applying it to what it loathes; but theft is a vice involving the slave-idea that one's neighbor is superior to oneself.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.

What is virtue? reason put into practice: -talent? reason expressed with brilliance: -soul? reason delicately put forth; and genius is sublime reason.

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.

Class can 'walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.' Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because that person is comfortable with himself.

But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue.

I desire Virtue, though I love her not- I have no faith in her when she is got: I fear that she will bind and make me slave And send me songless to the sullen grave.

Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure.

It is the active exercise of our faculties in conformity with virtue that causes happiness, and the opposite activities its opposite.

...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.

A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible. What is best is happiness, and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete employment of it.