Virtue Quotes

Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue.

In justice is all virtues found in sum.

Let us be well persuaded that everyone of us possesses happiness in proportion to his virtue and wisdom, and according as he acts in obedience to their suggestion.

Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion.

Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.'

In this era in which we live, the old-fashioned virtues grow increasingly unpopular.

In my opinion, moderation is a vastly overrated virtue, particularly when applied to work

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

Industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth . . . thereby [secures] virtue, it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly. . . .

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about.

Bullets can harm you and death can disarm you, but no, you will not be deceived. Stripped of all virtue as you crawl through the dirt, you can give but you cannot receive.

The finest defense of character is correct action. Acquaint yourself with virtue, and you can expect proper treatment from those around you.

I believe that I am God's exact intention. It's that balance of virtue and vice.

Within the bottle's depths, the wine's soul sang one night. Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.

There will be no true freedom without virtue, no true science without religion, no true industry without the fear of God and love to your fellow citizens.

Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.

Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled.

If one leads them with administrative measures and uses punishments to make them conform, the people will be evasive, but if one leads them with virtue, they will come up to expectations.

How transcendent is the virtue of the middle conduct! Rare for a long time has been its practice among the people.

The Master said, I set my heart on the Way, base myself on virtue, lean upon benevolence for support and take my recreation in the arts.

Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

Women bring with them into the world a certain virtue, a divine gift that makes them adept at instilling such qualities as faith, courage, empathy and refinement in relationships and in cultures.

A girl's modesty is first noted by her external presentation, but if it's not followed by the confidence of internal modesty, she still forfeits the power of her virtue.

The allure of immodesty is not in what is seen but what is not seen. Modesty issues a challenge for one man to romantically earn your virtue.

Happy the man whom indulgent fortune allows to pay to virtue what he owes to nature, and to make a generous gift of what must otherwise be ravished from him by cruel necessity.

Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.

Men are virtuous because women are; women are virtuous from necessity.

From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue.

To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.

Death--some form of termination--is the universal ending of all living things; but only man, by virtue of his verbally reportable introspective life, can conceptualize his own cessation.

It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea.

The virtue of man is, in a word, the great proof of God.

Virtue often trips and falls over the sharp edge of poverty.

Human nature is so weak that the honest men who have no religion make me fret with their perilous virtue, as rope-dancers with their dangerous equilibrium.

The effect of great and inevitable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not deprive of all virtue.

I urge you to spend your youth profitably in study and virtue.... In brief, let me see in you an abyss of knowledge.

If you let culture make tolerance the preeminent virtue, pretty soon you won't have anything else.

Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom.

Everything depends on the value we give to things. We are the ones who make morality and virtue. The cannibal who eats his neighbor is as innocent as the child who sucks his barley-sugar.

It costs more to maintain ten vices than one virtue.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

Virtue its own reward? Alas! And what a poor one as a rule! Be virtuous and life will pass Like one long term of Sunday School.

People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.

Silver is less valuable than gold, gold than virtue. [Lat., Vilius argentum est auro virtutibus aurum.]

Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue.

There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.

There may be guilt when there is too much virtue.

Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.

Crime, like virtue, has its degrees.