Virtue Quotes

Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman.

Let the world see that this nation can bear prosperity; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to her bravest valor in time of war.

We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable.

Travelers find virtue in a seeming minority in all other countries, and forget that they have left it in a minority at home.

If a man has no vices, he is in great danger of making vices about his virtues, and there's a spectacle.

If you look at all of the villains in the course of human history, they've all believed, delusionally, in the virtue of their actions - every villain is a hero in his own mind.

The concept of physical beauty as a virtue is one of the dumbest, most pernicious and destructive ideas of the Western world, and we should have nothing to do with it.

Where you see valid achievements or virtue being attacked, it's by someone viewing them as a mirror of their own inadequacy instead of an inspiring beacon for excellence.

I should wonder what courage—which is the virtue they most value—has to do with a metal ring through your nostril.

God has granted me today a very particular fondness for requesting of Him that same virtue of ever choosing the worst and that which is contrary to my own liking.

. . . in the final analysis, virtue is not found in extremes, but in prudence . . .

For there is a virtue in truth; it has an almost mystic power. Like radium, it seems to give off forever and ever grains of energy, atoms of light.

Original thoughts can be understood only in virtue of the unoriginal elements which they contain.

No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives.

I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.

The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.

Virtue is presupposed in friendship.

The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.

Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.

Modesty isn't always a virtue; it can be a hindrance; a careful measure of personal pride builds confidence and ensures success.

I am a citizen of the world, and I have met, in my time, with so many different sorts of virtue, that I am puzzled, in my old age, to say which is the right sort and which is the wrong.

It's great to be black in Hollywood. When a black actor does something, it seems new and different just by virtue of the fact that he's black.

Removing religion from the womb of culture has become the practiced virtue of the ACLU over the past several decades.

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.

The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.

For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?

Neither our vices nor our virtues further the poem.

God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.

Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.

The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.

There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy, and virtue.

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.

As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.

There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.

A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.

God seeth different abilities and frailties of men, which may move His goodness to be merciful to their different improvements in virtue.

After I published a book called Lincoln's Virtues a wit said that my next book should be Lincoln's Vices. But in my opinion that would be a short book!

The principle of happiness should be like the principle of virtue: it should not be dependent of things, but be a part of personality [and character].

Unless virtue guide us our choice must be wrong.

Interest has the security, though not the virtue of a principle. As the world goes, it is the surest side; for men daily leave both relations and religion to follow it.

Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.

Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.

As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue

Sin, that amends, is but patched with virtue.

Ambition, the soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, than gain which darkens him.