Virtue Quotes

We have collected and put the best virtue quotes from around the world. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and a good moral being. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual greatness. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards. Doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong. The opposite of virtue is vice.

Virtue is when people realize their own limitedness, and let go of their pettiness in the infinity of the universe.

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. – Harry Graham

Of vice or virtue, whether blest or cursed,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all th’ advantage prosp’rous vice attains,
‘Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains. – Alexander Pope

If one doth act in friendly wise,
With no evil thought toward any single creature,
And in so doing becometh proper,
And if he have compassion in his soul
Toward all living beings–this noble one
Doth acquire abundant Virtue. – Gautama Buddha

Virtue!–to be good and just–
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix’d with cunning sparks of hell. – Alfred Tennyson

Virtue is …

Virtue alone has majesty in death. – Edward Young

Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul. – Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Virtue alone is true nobility. – William Gifford

Virtue always meets reward, But quicker when it wears a sword. – Bret Harte

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue and liberty are both good things, and when the world is well-ordered, they are in harmony with one another. Today we often find them at odds. The friends of virtue see liberty abused in the pursuit of vices which prove self-destructive to the individual and harmful to others, while friends of liberty think the friends of virtue want to force them to live a certain way, confining their personal freedom, and for that matter, differing vastly among themselves about what virtue is. – James Stoner

Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled… – Christopher Hitchens

Virtue and riches seldom settle on one man. – Niccolo Machiavelli

Virtue and sense are one; and, trust me, still A faithless heart betrays the head unsound. – John Armstrong

Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised. – Osamu Dazai

Virtue and vice are the only things in this world, which, with our souls, are capable of surviving death; the former is the rational and only procuring cause of all intellectual happiness, and the latter of conscious guilt and misery; and therefore, our indispensable duty and ultimate interest is, to love, cultivate and improve the one, as the means of our greatest good, and to hate and abstain from the other, as productive of our greatest evil. – Ethan Allen

Virtue by calculation is the virtue of vice. – Joseph Joubert

Virtue by premeditation isn’t worth much. – Georg C. Lichtenberg

Virtue by premeditation isn’t worth much. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Virtue can only flourish among equals. – Mary Wollstonecraft

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil. – Albert Camus

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval. – Apollonius of Tyana

Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless. – Iain Pears

Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease. – Robert Cecil

Virtue consists in avoiding scandal and venereal disease. – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

Virtue consists in avoiding vice, and is the highest wisdom. [Lat., Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima.] – Horace

Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation. – James Waddel Alexander

Virtue consists not in avoiding wrong-doing, but in having no want for it. – Democritus

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it. – George Bernard Shaw

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon where in the flat sea sunk. – John Milton

Virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream. – Owen Feltham

Virtue has a secret dignity, even with those that ridicule it. – Norman Macdonald

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask. – Victor Hugo

Virtue has its own reward, but no sale at the box office. – Mae West

Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs. – Claude Helvetius

Virtue has more admirers than followers. – Norman Macdonald

Virtue herself is her own fairest reward. – Silius Italicus

Virtue in a man doesn’t make you want to grab him. – Caitlin Thomas

Virtue in women is perhaps a question of temperament. – Honore de Balzac

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing. – Max Heindel

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Virtue is a wealth, and all the other good things that a man can have come from virtue. – Socrates

Virtue is about wanting right and good things, not about being particularly good at thinking. – Nomy Arpaly

Virtue is admirable, but boring. – John Twelve Hawks

Virtue is akin to holiness, an attribute of godliness. – Ezra Taft Benson

Virtue is also power. As we faithfully live the gospel, we will have power to be virtuous in every thought, feeling and action. Our minds become more receptive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ. We embody Christ not only in what we say and do, but in who we are. – Robert D. Hales

Virtue is always in progress and yet always starts from the beginning. It is always in progress because, considered objectively, it is an ideal and unattainable, while yet constant approximation to it is a duty. – Immanuel Kant

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature. – John Bradshaw

Virtue is as good as a thousand shields. – Latin Proverb

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. – William Shakespeare

Virtue is certainly the most noble and secure possession a man can have. – Richard Savage

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice. – Rutherford B. Hayes

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. – John Locke

Virtue is harmony. – Pythagoras

Virtue is health, vice is sickness. – Petrarch

Virtue is her own reward. – John Dryden

Virtue is increased by the smile of approval; and the love of renown is the greatest incentive to honourable acts. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue is indeed its own reward. – Claudius Claudianus

Virtue is insufficient temptation. – George Bernard Shaw

Virtue is its own punishment. – Aneurin Bevan

Virtue is its own revenge. – Yip Harburg

Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure’s sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue. – John Henry Newman

Virtue is its own reward. – Cicero

Virtue is its own reward. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue is its own reward. There’s a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself. – John Vanbrugh

Virtue is its own reward. We only invented concepts like heaven and hell to describe how we feel. We don’t feel good doing bad and it’s nice to help someone. – Alain de Botton

Virtue is like a polar star, which keeps its place, and all stars turn towards it. – Confucius

Virtue is like a rich stone, it’s best plain set. – Francis Bacon

Virtue is like precious odors — most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed. – Francis Bacon

Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when it is crushed. – Baroness Orczy

Virtue is more to a man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue. – Confucius

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience. – Adam Smith

Virtue is not a thing you can have by halves; it is or it is not. – Honore de Balzac

Virtue is not always amiable. – John Adams

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. – Confucius

Virtue is not photogenic, so I liked playing bad guys. But, whenever I played a bad guy, I tried to find something good in him, and that kept my contact with the audience. – Kirk Douglas

Virtue is not photogenic. What is it to be a nice guy? To be nothing, that’s what. A big fat zero with a smile for everybody. – Kirk Douglas

Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in doing good. – Joseph Butler

Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good. – Miguel de Cervantes

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good. – Buddha

Virtue is reason which has become energy. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. – Plato

Virtue is safe only when it is inspired. – Charles Henry Parkhurst

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning. – William S. Burroughs

Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere – the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue. – Terry Eagleton

Virtue is the effort, the conquest of a difficulty, leaving, as its results, a balance of happiness. There may be, there is much good in the world, which no virtue has been concerned in producing. But there is no virtue where there is no balance of happiness. – Jeremy Bentham

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs. – Christopher Marlowe

Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Virtue is the health of the soul. – Joseph Joubert

Virtue is the health, true state, natural complexion of the Soul. – Benjamin Whichcote

Virtue is the music of the soul, the harmony of the passions. – Mary Collyer

Virtue is the performance of pleasant actions. – James Stephens

Virtue is the strength and power of the daughters of God. – Elaine S. Dalton

Virtue is the truest liberty. – Owen Feltham

Virtue is the truest nobility. – Miguel de Cervantes

Virtue is to herself the best reward. – Henry More

Virtue isn’t not wronging others but not wishing to wrong others. – Democritus

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes. – William Shakespeare

Virtue knows no color line … – Ida B. Wells

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing. – Samuel Butler

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice. – Horace Walpole

Virtue lies in the middle ground. – Jose Rizal

Virtue lies like the gold in quartz: there is not very much of it and much pain has to be spent on the extracting of it. – Jerome K. Jerome

Virtue lives when Beauty dies. – Bill Vaughan

Virtue looks good but it only suits imposing figures. – Frank Wedekind

Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves. – Norman Macdonald

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled. – John Milton

Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it. – E. W. Howe

Virtue must shape itself in deed. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Virtue never has been as respectable as money. – Mark Twain

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

Virtue only is the true beauty. – Samuel Richardson

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way. – Michel de Montaigne

Virtue requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, or internal difficulties. – Michel de Montaigne

Virtue seeks the greatest distance from vice. – Edward Counsel

Virtue seems to be nothing more than a motion consonant to the system of things. Were a planet to fly from its orbit, it would represent a vicious man. – William Shenstone

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever. – Alexander Pope

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. – William Hazlitt

Virtue survives the grave. – Kalidasa

Virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. – William Shakespeare

Virtue that wavers is not virtue. – John Milton

Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave. – James Russell Lowell

Virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness. – Diogenes Laertius

Virtue wears well in any garb. – Edward Counsel

Virtue when concealed is a worthless thing. – Claudius Claudianus

Virtue which shuns, the day. – Joseph Addison

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Virtue’s a stronger guard than brass. – Edmund Waller

Virtue, as such, naturally procures considerable advantages to the virtuous. – Joseph Butler

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost? – Alexander Pope

Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers. – Bill Vaughan

Virtue, like beauty, is commonly only skin deep. – Austin O’Malley

Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue. – Honoré de Balzac

Virtue, opening heaven to those who do not deserve to die, makes her course by paths untried. [Lat., Virtus, recludens immeritis mori Coelum, negata tentat iter via.] – Horace

Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul. – Honore de Balzac

Virtue, though clothed in a beggar’s garb, commands respect. – Friedrich Schiller

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning. – Quintilian

Virtue, which breaks through opposition and all temptation can remove, most shines, and most is acceptable above. – John Milton

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself. – Sidney Lanier

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, Which rests wholly upon yourself. So, to praise others for their virtues Can but encourage one’s own efforts. – Thomas Paine

Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues. – Alasdair MacIntyre

Virtues are often conquered by vices, but their rout is most complete when it is inflicted by other virtues, more militant, more efficient, or more congenial. – R. H. Tawney

Virtues are to be sought in the practice of religion. It rarely happens that an atheist has laudable virtues, or that a religious person has none. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Virtues are to the person what nutrition is to the body. – Donald Demarco

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Virtues neglected then, adored become, And graces slighted, blossom on the tomb. – George Crabbe

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. – William Shenstone

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

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny. – Nancy Gibbs

Virtues, n. pl. Certain abstentions. – Ambrose Bierce

Virtue Leadership Example Courage Compassion

A cardinal American virtue, ‘ambition,’ promotes a cardinal American vice, ‘deviant behavior. – Robert K. Merton

A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice- but as yet unstained. – Lyman Abbott

A coerced choice does not reflect virtue, only compliance. – Wendy McElroy

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system. – Steven Knight

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue. – Phillip E. Johnson

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue. – Daniel Webster

A deed happens in a definite place at a definite time, but if it be sufficiently great and pregnant, its virtue radiates everywhere in time and space. – George Sarton

A deep concern of mine is that leaders in the technology sector have not developed a culture that insists upon courage, honor, duty, and humility – what we might call a culture of virtue. – Joe Lonsdale

A difficult form of virtue is to try in your own life to obey what you believe to be God’s will. – John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

A distinctive culture evolves in the crucible of true religion, high morality and virtues, and well-digested knowledge. Where religion and morality are opposed and rejected, and ignorance is widespread, a high or advanced culture cannot be formed. – M. Fethullah Gulen

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues. – Plutarch

A friend exaggerates a man’s virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes. – Joseph Addison

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity. – Robert Hall

A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being. – James E. Faust

A healthy social life is found only when, in the mirror of each soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the whole community, the virtue of each one is living. – Rudolf Steiner

A hero usually rises above the ordinary because he or she exemplifies some virtue that everyone can recognize. – Munira Mirza

A huge part of keeping women in their place has to do with creating a really limited definition of what a ‘real’ woman is like. And a ton of that what-makes-a-woman nonsense is attached to motherhood. Apparently, by virtue of having ovaries and a uterus, women are automatic mommies or mommies-to-be. – Jessica Valenti

A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue. – Quintilian

A man has virtues enough if he deserves pardon for his faults on account of them. – Georg C. Lichtenberg

A man hasn’t got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined. – Ann Petry

A man is free in proportion to the measure of his virtues, and the extent to which he is free determines what his virtues can accomplish. – John of Salisbury

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side. – Joseph Addison

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others. – Francis Bacon

A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men’s minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others’ evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another’s virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another’s fortune. – Francis Bacon

A man’s indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude. – Ruth Benedict

A man’s virtue should not be measured by his occasional exertions, but by his ordinary doings. – Eliza Cook

A mode of thought does not become ‘critical’ simply by attributing that label to itself, but by virtue of its content. – Alan Sokal

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue. – Edith Wharton

A person who lacks the verdancy of justice is dry, totally without tender goodness, totally without illuminating virtue. – Hildegard of Bingen

A readiness to resent injuries is a virtue only in those who are slow to injure. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A republican government can only be supported by virtue; and the end of all our legislation should be to encourage our fellow citizens in its daily practice. – John Tyler

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example. – Niccolo Machiavelli

A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law. – Han Fei

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. – Thomas Paine

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him. – George Orwell

A truthmaker is an entity in virtue of which the proposition it makes true is true. And it is a necessary condition of being a truthmaker (though not a sufficient one) that a truthmaker necessitates the proposition it makes true. – Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

A vice is merely a pleasure to which somebody has objected. – Robin Skelton

A virtue never tested is no virtue at all. – Billy Bragg

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy. – Samuel Butler

A virtuous woman has in her heart one fibre less or one fibre more than other women; she is either stupid or sublime. – Honoré de Balzac

A visit to the Rennes market, one of the finest I have seen in France, alone will convince you of the virtues of Breton gastronomy. It’s a testament to the fact that Brittany is Frances’ most agriculturally active region, with the producers themselves peddling their products, a vocal bunch, full of recipe ideas and passion. – Rachel Khoo

A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A woman awake to virtue in her inner world resembles a crystal chandelier that, with every movement, sends light throughout the house. The most important thing a woman should know is social breeding. – M. Fethullah Gulen

A woman mixed of such fine elements That were all virtue and religion dead She’d make them newly, being what she was. – George Eliot

A young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. – Plato

Above all, remember that God looks for solid virtues in us, such as patience, humility, obedience, abnegation of your own will – that is, the good will to serve Him and our neighbor in Him. His providence allows us other devotions only insofar as He sees that they are useful to us. – Saint Ignatius

Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it. – Samuel Beckett

According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication. – Irving Babbitt

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction. – Adlai E. Stevenson

Actions receive their tincture from the times, And as they change are virtues made or crimes. – Daniel Defoe

Acts are right in virtue of the goodness of their consequences. – Dale Jamieson

Affliction is a school of virtue; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning. – Francis Atterbury

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. – David Mallet

After all, chamber of commerce type conservatives love nothing more than to opine on the great virtues of Texas. The low taxes, the low regulation, delightfully paired with a low investment in education, health care and really anything else that might be of use to their working-class citizens. – Krystal Ball

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! – William Lee Miller

Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves. – Maximilien Robespierre

Age or virtue may give men a just precedency. – John Locke

Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degre s. Crime, like virtue, has its degrees. – Jean Racine

All earthly blessings virtue sends: On virtue all the world depends. – Valmiki

All forced virtue is degrading in it effect. – Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. – Edmund Burke

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter. – Max Planck

All men by nature desire knowledge. – Aristotle

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance. – Theodore Hesburgh

All societies wrestle with the scourge of prejudice, but validating that prejudice in statute makes a virtue of oppression. – Ephraim Mirvis

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All the beautiful “flowers” of laudable virtues are grown in the “gardens” of religion, as are the most illustrious “fruits” of the tree of creation, such as Prophets, saints, and schol­ars of high achievement. Although atheists deliberately ignore them, regardless of how hard they try, they will not be able to remove them from the hearts of people and the pages of books. – M. Fethullah Gulen

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. – Plato

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation. – John Adams

All things happen by virtue of necessity. – Democritus

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly. – Aristotle

Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions. – Lawrence Kohlberg

Although the many virtues that courtesans possessed were employed to defy circumstances, the role they played depended on the same circumstances over which they triumphed- conditions which to, fortunately for modern women, no longer exist. – Susan Griffin

Although virtue receives some of its excellencies from nature, yet it is perfected by education. [Lat., Virtus, etiamsi quosdam impetus a natura sumit, tamen perficienda doctrina est.] – Quintilian

Always, in times of stress, it is the simple virtues that really count. – John Winant

Ambition, in a private man is a vice, is in a prince the virtue. – Philip Massinger

Americans’ distrust of the conspicuously intellectual – a habit we learned, I suppose, on the frontier, but which remains a feature of the national character – has the virtue of puncturing the pretentious and exposing the fake, but it may also have impaired American listeners’ patience for music that is especially complex or austere. – Steven Stucky

Amongst other our secular businesses and cures, our principal intent and fervent desire is to see virtue and cleanness of living to be advanced, increased, and multiplied, and vices and all other things repugnant to virtue, provoking the high indignation and fearful displeasure of God, to be repressed and annulled. – Richard III of England

An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. – Joseph Pulitzer

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft. – Walter Bagehot

An untempted soul may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous, for virtue is the choice of right when wrong presses itself upon us and demands our choosing. – Lyman Abbott

And as we perceive that virtue assumes a multitude of diverse forms, this variety discovered in intelligent beings convinces us that the most perfect Being is He who unites in Himself the greatest number, or the sum total, of all these perfections. – Sabine Baring-Gould

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. – John Dryden

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you’ll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? – Milton Friedman

And what is faith, love, virtue unassayed Alone, without exterior help sustained? – John Milton

And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind? – Jonathan Swift

Any one may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love and aspiration after virtue; but he who maintains vice in theory, has not even the idea or capacity for virtue in his mind. Men err: fiends only mock at goodness. – William Hazlitt

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people. – Jean de La Fontaine

Aristotle deemed courage to be the first virtue, because it makes all the other possible. – Jonathan V. Last

Art is the one thing that’s the universal virtue that you can have in any class. – Geoff Rickly

Artists instinctively want to reflect humanity, their own and each other’s, in all its intermittent virtue and vitality, frailty and fallibility. – Tom Hiddleston

As a good tree produces good fruit; even so does a virtuous soul produce pure thoughts. – William Scott Downey

As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him. – Henry Parry Liddon

As an actor, technically, when you are off a film, you are out of a job. An actor goes from job to job. By virtue, acting is an unsure profession. – Aditya Roy Kapur

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. – Albert Einstein

As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue. – Somerset Maugham

As sisters in Zion, we can be obstacles to the adversary’s conspiracy against families and virtue. – Sheri L. Dew

As the flower, when plucked for enjoyment, begins to wither, so does virtue practiced for reward begin to vanish. – Ivan Panin

As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue. – Christian Nestell Bovee

As to virtue . . . it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality. – Alexis Carrel

As you come to seek and see the virtues and strengths and nobilities of others, you begin to seek and see them in yourself also. – Gary Zukav

As you do not sweeten your mouth by saying honey, so you do not grow virtuous by merely talking of virtue. – Ivan Panin

Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue. – Sadhu Vaswani

Assume a virtue if you have it not. – William Shakespeare

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. – Aristotle

At its core, our military is comprised of service members who are proud of their country and are willing to go to great lengths to protect American virtues of liberty and justice. I was one of them. – Ted Lieu

At the end of the day, Americans are not so keen on ideologues, people who have such fixed positions that they can’t see any virtue in the other side’s point of view. – Robert Dallek

Auspicious queen, thine heav’nly pinions spread, / And lead celestial Chastity along’ Lo! / Now her sacred retinue descends, / Array’d in glory from the orbs above. / Attend me, Virtue, thro’ my youthful years! / But guide my steps to endless life and bliss. – Phillis Wheatley

Authenticity is a virtue. But just as you can have too little authenticity, you can also have too much. – Adam Grant

Authenticity, living your truth, kindness – these are necessary virtues. – Merle Dandridge

Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handicraft, an art, a science, a virtue. – August Wilhelm von Schlegel

Avoid places that disturb your mind, and always remain where your virtues increase. – Atisa

Back when I was an idealistic 18-year-old on my way to Chicago, I might have believed that being on the side of virtue would guarantee a good outcome. These many years later, I know better. – John W. Henry

Balance is key. Balance is a virtue. Balance is next to godliness, maybe. We should all aspire to better balance. Too much of what is said in this world is one-sided, and we need more balance – in our speech, in our music, in our art, in everything. – CeeLo Green

Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. – Benjamin Franklin

Be not niggardly of what costs thee nothing, as courtesy, counsel and countenance. – Benjamin Franklin

Be not overcome by evil but repay evil with good. – The Bible

Be not virtuous beyond your powers! And seek nothing from yourselves opposed to probability! Walk in the footsteps in which your fathers’ virtue hath already walked! How would ye rise high, if your fathers’ will should not rise with you? – Friedrich Nietszche

Be patient. Patience is the mother of all virtues. – Hrithik Roshan

Be strong, but not rude; Be kind, but not weak; Be bold, but not bully; Be humble, but not timid; Be proud, but not arrogant. – Zig Ziglar

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life’s Too Long for Patience and Virtue. – Charles Saatchi

Be to their virtue very kind; be to their faults a little blind. – Matthew Prior

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric. – Mark Twain

Beauty is an exquisite flower, and its perfume is virtue. – Giovanni Ruffini

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul. – George Bancroft

Beauty is the flower of virtue. – Plutarch

Beauty without virtue is a flower without perfume. – French Proverb (on beauty)

Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive. – Bernard de Mandeville

Because virtue is an ideal, to go further down the road of virtue is always possible. – John W. Chapman

Being a gentleman, has more to do with hiding his flaws, than exhibiting the virtues. – Ramana Pemmaraju

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know. – Charles Kingsley

Being intellectually hospitable is a virtue that I bring into the interview space. – Krista Tippett

Belief contains so many truths pertaining to God’s Names and the realities contained in the universe that the most perfect science, knowledge, and virtue is belief and knowledge of God originating in a belief based on argument and investigation. – Said Nursi

Believe me, ’tis a godlike thing to lend; to owe is a heroic virtue. – Francois Rabelais

Beneficience removes evils, introduces the practice of virtue, and adds to general welfare and civilization. – Dayananda Saraswati

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue. – Carlos Castañeda

Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue. – Kiese Laymon

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself. – Baruch Spinoza

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime. – Imre Lakatos

Blind submission in women is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue alike in women as in man. – Ernestine Rose

Blushing is the color of virtue. – Diogenes

Boasting of wealth and virtue brings your demise. – Lao Tzu

Bodies which contain a greater proportion of water than is necessary to balance the other elements, are speedily corrupted, and lose their virtues and properties. – Vitruvius

Both excess and defect are alike prejudicial to moral virtue. – Aristotle

Both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually understand whatever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting. – Stephen Prothero

Britain is not homogenous; it was never a society without conflict. The English fought tooth and nail over everything we know of as English political virtues – rule of law, free speech, the franchise. – Stuart Hall

Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy. – J. B. Priestley

But by virtue of our baptism, Peter Akinola and I are brothers in Christ and one day we are going to be in heaven together, so we might as well learn to get along here because we will have to get along there. God won’t have it any other way. – Gene Robinson

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant. – Mary Renault

But few are those who tread the sunlit path; Only the pure in soul can walk in light. – Sri Aurobindo

But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue … – Ann Radcliffe

But what has America to boast? What are the graces or the virtues which distinguish its inhabitants? What are their triumphs in war, or their inventions in peace? – Thomas Day

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. – Edmund Burke

By poeticizing love, we imagine in those we love virtues that they often do not possess; this then becomes the source of constant mistakes and constant distress. – Anton Chekhov

By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now. – Julius Charles Hare

By the virtue of modesty the devout person governs all his exterior acts. With good reason, then, does St. Paul recommend this virtue to all and declare how necessary it is and as if this were not enough he considers that this virtue should be obvious to all. – Pio of Pietrelcina

By virtue of being a half Punjabi and half Sikh, tandoori chicken was my staple diet. – Vivek Oberoi

By virtue of being born to humanity, every human being has a right to the development and fulfillment of his potentialities as a human being. – Ashley Montagu

By virtue of believing in a Supreme Being one embraces certain mysteries. – Robert Vaughn

By virtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

By virtue of my job, I’m traveling. You get to spend very little time with your family. We hardly get to meet each other except on the one odd day we really get to spend time, have dinner together. And that’s rare, and we cherish it. – Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

By virtue of my traditions, and my community, I worked hard to ensure that I was accepted as part of the traditional family of America. – James H. Douglas, Jr.

By virtue of our private property society, we have disconnected individuals from the land. We have put them in high rises and asked them to live their lives in urban settings, disconnected from the land. – Adam Dell

By virtue of some of the ways the game is played, in terms of message discipline, in terms of access for reporters, and especially in the way that sources and subjects, especially famous subjects, treat the media, almost by default there’s more news that’s falling into books. – Ron Suskind

By virtue of the standing and prestige of President Ben-Zvi, some 3,000 manuscripts originating from Arab lands, some of them of major significance, have been deposited at the Ben-Zvi Institute. In contrast to the Aleppo Codex, most of these documents were donated willingly, in the confidence that the institute would protect and preserve them. – Ronen Bergman

By virtue of who we are, what we know, the promises we made to our Heavenly Father, and the fact that we are living now and where we are living, I absolutely think we were all born to lead. – Sheri L. Dew

Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits? – Anton Chekhov

Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs. – Karl Marx

Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest. – Joseph A. Schumpeter

Certainly the first true humans were unique by virtue of their large brains. It was because the human brain is so large when compared with that of a chimpanzee that paleontologists for years hunted for a half-ape, half-human skeleton that would provide a fossil link between the human and the ape. -Jane Goodall

Change is terrifying for people who feel immune to it by virtue of status, divine appointment, or imagined irreplaceability. – Mimi Kennedy

Character is easier kept than recovered. – English Proverb (on character and virtue)

Character is supreme in life, hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing – so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code but a character. – E. Stanley Jones

Charity is a supreme virtue, and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed onto mankind. – Conrad Hilton

Charity is a very labour-intensive virtue. – Garth Nix

Chastity is oftener owing to diffidence and shame, than to fortitude of reason or virtue. – Norm MacDonald

Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. – C. S. Lewis

Chastity, like honesty, is a civic as well as a personal virtue. When a society loses chastity, it begins to destroy itself. – J. William Schickel

Cheapness is a great virtue. – Bill Bryson

Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue. – Lawrence G. Lovasik

Children exist in the worlds that adults create for them, both locally and globally, and their options are, by virtue of age, often painfully limited. – Laura van den Berg

Chinese culture has a lot of virtues that are tremendously valuable to not only us as Asian-Americans, but also the world in general. – Martin Yan

‘Character Doesn’t Count’ has become a de facto G.O.P. motto. ‘Virtue Doesn’t Matter’ might be another. But character does count, and virtue does matter, and Trump’s shortcomings prove it daily. – Bret Stephens

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own. – George Bernard Shaw

Christ has conquered death, not only by suppressing its evil effects, but by reversing its sting. By virtue of Christ’s rising again, nothing any longer kills inevitably, but everything is capable of becoming the blessed touch of the divine hands, the blessed influence of the will of God upon our lives. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Christian virtues unite men. Racism separates them. – Sargent Shriver

Christianity is reasonable in virtue of the impossibility of the contrary. – Greg L. Bahnsen

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage. – Bertrand Russell

Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities, the strength, the wisdom, the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen. – Charlton Ogburn

Civility costs nothing and buys everything. – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

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. – Ann Landers

Common sense has become an uncommon virtue. – Amit Abraham

Common tyrants, and public oppressors, are not intitled to obedience from their subjects, by virtue of any thing here laid down by the inspired apostle. – Jonathan Mayhew

Compassion is not a popular virtue. – Karen Armstrong

Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it’s the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what’s the point of having religion if you can’t disapprove of other people? – Karen Armstrong

Competition is such a virtue, and everybody’s so busy competing, they have no time for compassion. – Major Owens

Compliment others on the virtues they have; and they’re not half as pleased as being complimented for the ones they don’t have. – Malcolm Forbes

Conduciveness to happiness being then the test of virtue, and all happiness being composed of our own happiness and that of others, the production of our own happiness is prudence, the production of the happiness of others is effective benevolence. The tree of virtue is thus divided into to great stems, out of which grow all the other branches of virtue. – Jeremy Bentham

Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We’re nothing without our musicians. – Simon Rattle

Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness. – Edwin Louis Cole

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world. – Walter Bagehot

Conscience is the sentinel of virtue. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge. – Dante Alighieri

Consistency is a virtue for trains. – Stephen Vizinczey

Consistency is the most overrated of all human virtues… I’m someone who changes his mind all the time. – Malcolm Gladwell

Constancy is the complement of all other human virtues. – Giuseppe Mazzini

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

Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. – John Dryden

Contentment travels rarely with fortune, but follows virtue even in misfortune. – Marie Leszczynska

Continuity is a great thing; staying the course and being patient, those are important virtues. But also there is virtue in being realistic enough to know you have to make serious changes sometimes. – Jim Irsay

Counsel and conversation is a good second education, that improves all the virtue and corrects all the vice of the former, and of nature itself. – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

Count all th’ advantage prosperous Vice attains, ‘Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains: And grant the bad what happiness they would, One they must want–which is, to pass for good. – Alexander Pope

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. – C. S. Lewis

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend. – Winston Churchill

Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible. – Aristotle

Courage is the form of every virtue at the testing point. – Lynn G. Robbins

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others. – Samuel Johnson

Courage is the human virtue that counts most-courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That’s all any of us have. – Robert Frost

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. – Clare Boothe Luce

Courage is the most fundamental of all virtues. – Max Anders

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. – Maya Angelou

Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others. – Aristotle

Courage is the virtue of the free. – Daniel Quinn

Courage, energy and patience are the virtues which appeal to my heart. – Fritz Kreisler

Courage, however, and adventure, and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted—COURAGE seemeth to me the entire primitive history of man. – Friedrich Nietszche

Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue. – Diogenes Laertius

Courage, the universal virtue, is comprehended by us all—but these portraits of courage do not dispel the mysteries of politics. – John F. Kennedy

Crime like virtue has its degrees; and timid innocence was never known to blossom suddenly into extreme license. – Jean Racine

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards. – George Farquhar

Critics, at least generally, want to regard works of fiction as independent entities, whose virtues and failures must be reckoned apart from the circumstances of their creation, and even apart from the intentions of their creator. – Paul Di Filippo

Dali is like a man who hesitates between talent and genius, or, as one might once have said, between vice and virtue. – Andre Breton

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice. – Mario Cuomo

Death, like virtue, has its degrees. – James O’Barr

Delicate humor is the crowning virtue of the saints. – Evelyn Underhill

Dembele likes to take players on. He’s a dribbler and a power player who likes to break into space; he has the ability to do this. He has a lot of virtues. – Ernesto Valverde

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. – Thomas Jefferson

Descartes’s epistemology is a special case of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. – Ernest Sosa

Desires resemble sweets, and virtues resemble food that is a little salty or sour. When young people are free to choose, what are they likely to prefer? Regardless of this, however, it is our obligation to bring them up to be friends of virtue and enemies of indecency and immorality. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Desires should never be justified,’ Tehol said, wagging a finger. ‘All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence. – Steven Erikson

Despite their differences, the virtues all have the same general sort of value: they are all qualities needed for successful human living. – James Rachels

Detachment is a flaw, not a virtue-don’t you realize that? – Steven Erikson

Determination is the fuel that propels one to higher virtues. – Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni

Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions. – Iain Pears

Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue. – Plato

Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you’ve got an audience. – Diogenes

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There’s no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn’t a gift. It’s a responsibility. – Dalton Trumbo

Do good and care not to whom. – Portuguese Proverb (on good and evil)

Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint. – Henry Ward Beecher

Do what comes natural. – Unknown

Do you remember any instance where tyranny was destroyed and freedom established on its ruins, among a people possessing so small a share of virtue and public spirit? I recollect none, and this more than the British arms makes me fearful of final success, without a reform. – Patrick Henry

Don’t be limited in your views with regard to your neighbor’s virtue…You must enlarge your soul towards each other. – Joseph Smith, Jr.

Don’t hang your hat higher than you can reach. – Belizean Proverb (on balance and moderation)

Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence. – Unknown

Don’t toot your own horn. – Unknown

Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself. – Izaak Walton

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel. – Jane Porter

Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue. – Charles Baudelaire

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken. – Eugene O’Neill

Each individual has the seeds of virtue as well as the potential for evil. Such undesirable characteristics as passion and the desire to show off exist alongside such good qualities as sincerity, altruism, and self-sufficiency. We should take all these qualities into account when considering human nature so that we will not be disappointed. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Each individual is equipped with sublime emotions, has a natural disposition toward virtue, and is fascinated with eternity. Even the most wretched-looking person has a rainbow-like atmosphere in his or her spirit comprised of the thought of eternity, love of beauty, and virtuous feeling. If people can develop these most basic, inherent elements of their being, they can rise to the highest ranks of humanity and attain eternity. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Each must in virtue strive for to excel; That man lives twice that lives the first life well. – Robert Herrick

Each one of us has a particular virtue and faults that make the process of becoming like Jesus different. – Mother Angelica

Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good throughout. – Benjamin Franklin

Economy I consider a virtue & should be practiced by all; there is certainly no way in which money can be laid out than in the education of children. – Zachary Taylor

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection. – Edmund Burke

Education is the best provision for old age. – Aristotle

Elegance is inferior to virtue. – Mary Shelley

Email has the virtue – sounds like a bad thing, but it’s the virtue of being the lowest common denominator messaging protocol. Everyone can have it. It can cross organizational boundaries. No one owns it. It’s not some particular company’s platform. – Stewart Butterfield

Emotionally damaged men all too often rip apart their own lives, and those of their partners and children. I see both physical fitness and emotional strength as virtues, but they are acquired by entirely different means. – George Monbiot

Empathy is a virtue, but it should not be a guiding judicial principle. – Gary Bauer

Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act. – Eric Zorn

Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death. – Thomas Jefferson

Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. – Ambrose Bierce

Equanimity is the gem in virtue’s chaplet, and St. Sweetness the loveliest in her calendar. – Amos Bronson Alcott

Even a pacifist should admire the military virtues. – John Keegan

Even virtue followed beyond reason’s rule may stamp the just man knave, the sage a fool. – Horace

Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person. – Virgil

Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward. – Jeremy Taylor

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. – Aristotle

Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life – and if Virtue is not its own reward I don’t know any other stipend annexed to it. – Lord Byron

Every deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue. – E. H. Chapin

Every evil is a sickness of soul, but virtue offers the cause of its health. – Saint Basil

Every faculty and virtue I possess can be used as an instrument with which to worry myself. – Hale White

Every human on the planet is descended from both slaves and slave owners. What makes Britain unusual is not that we engaged in the disgusting trade, but that we eliminated it. Our political institutions led us, earlier than many, to the conclusion that freedom was the highest virtue. – Daniel Hannan

Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice. – Lyman Abbott

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every time we make a new invention, we think we’re going to save the world, but eventually, we understand that the real virtues of that new invention have mostly to do with commerce. Then we feel a huge emptiness, and we want to fill it with beauty. – Robert Lepage

Every vice has its excuse ready. – Publilius Syrus

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime. – Will Durant

Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road. – John Henry Jowett

Every virtuous example has powerful impressions in early youth. Many years of vice and vicious examples do not erase from the mind seeds sown in early life. They take a deep root, and tho often crop’d will spring again. – Abigail Adams

Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence. – Frank Zappa

Everybody’s part of the greater whole and skepticism and virtue are a part of that. – Marc Webb

Everyone needs resilience. It’s a virtue essential to growth and essential to happiness. – Eric Greitens

Everything can be learned, even virtue. – Joseph Joubert

Everything I had been taught to regard as a vice — and I still regard them as vices — under Thatcherism was in fact a virtue: Greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees. – Glenda Jackson

Everything that’s coming into your life, you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you! – Bob Proctor

Evil borders upon good, and vices are confounded with virtues; as the report of good qualities is delightful to a well-disposed mind, so the relation of the contrary should not be offensive. – Giraldus Cambrensis

Evil was seductive and easy, and virtue was difficult and unappreciated. – Melissa de la Cruz

Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind. – Francois Fenelon

Exaggerated self-importance is deemed an individual fault, but a racial virtue. – Kelly Miller

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle

Experience is knowledge; but knowledge, when it is sought only as a material resource, is not always a blessing. Experience is wisdom; but wisdom, with those who lack vision, is not always power. Experience is tolerance; but tolerance, when it is induced by apathy, is not in the least a virtue. – Ameen Rihani

Experience shows us Wealth unchaperoned by Virtue is never an innocuous neighbor. – Sappho

Extol Jewish virtue, modern Zionism and the Israeli Defense Forces. – Geraldo Rivera

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater

Failing to see the point is not a virtue. – Howard Jacobson

Faith creates the virtues in which it believes. – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

Faith is a term that makes ignorance sound like a virtue. – Anthony Provenzano

Faith is an unclassified cognitive illness disguised as a moral virtue. – Peter Boghossian

Faith is one of those words that connotes, however irrationally, some kind of virtue in itself. – Louis J. Halle

Faith is the foundation of every virtue that strengthens marriage. – L. Whitney Clayton

Faith is the foundation upon which a godlike character is built. It is a prerequisite for all other virtues. – Ezra Taft Benson

Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live. – Leo Tolstoy

Faith is the virtue by which, clinging-to the faithfulness of God, we lean upon him, so that we may obtain what he gives to us. – William Ames

Fear is the virtue of slaves; but the heart that loveth is willing. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; And equanimity, and charity Which spieth no man’s faults; and tenderness Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, Modest, and grave, with manhood nobly mixed, With patience, fortitude, and purity; An unrevengeful spirit, never given To rate itself too high;–such be the signs, O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth! – Anonymous

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention. – Ninon de L’Enclos

Fermentation is the exhalation of a substance through the admixture of a ferment which, by virtue of its spirit, penetrates the mass and transforms it into its own nature. – Andreas Libavius

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. – George Washington

Fidelity – a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. – Ambrose Bierce

Films are meant solely to provide entertainment. There are no lessons to be learnt and and inferences to be drawn. Has anyone become dutiful and law abiding after seeing a film that espouses these very virtues? Films can do no more than influence fashion, decor, and hairstyle trends. – Madhur Bhandarkar

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. – Confucius

Flirting is the sin of the virtuous and the virtue of the sinful. – Paul Bourget

Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue. – Ernest Sosa

For a few thousand years, women had no history. Marriage was our calling, and meekness our virtue. Over the last century, in stuttering succession, we have gained a voice, a vote, a room, a playing field of our own. Decorously or defiantly, we now approach what surely qualifies as the final frontier. – Stacy Schiff

For a long time, I thought that I was an enlightened parent by virtue of being an enlightened person. What a fool. – Rumaan Alam

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice. – Erwin Schrodinger

For centuries, the question of men needing to comprehend women simply didn’t arise. Men were valued according to how they measured up to the manly virtues. – Allison Pearson

For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. – St. Augustine

For every prescriptive idea about the craft of fiction, there’s at least one writer who makes a virtue of the contrary. – Sarah Hall

For fear—that is man’s original and fundamental feeling; through fear everything is explained, original sin and original virtue. – Friedrich Nietszche

For India’s economy to expand as rapidly and yet more sustainably than China’s, we need to make our differences into virtues rather than vulnerabilities. – Anand Mahindra

For me, patience is a virtue and the result is much more important than the road. – Isaac Wright Jr.

For me, the Immaculate Conception is the feast of ‘passive action,’ the action that functions simply by the transmission through us of divine energy. Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness. – Thomas Bulfinch

For organizations seriously committed to making teamwork a cultural reality, I’m convinced that ‘the right people’ are the ones who have three virtues in common – humility, hunger, and people smarts. – Patrick Lencioni

For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society. – Aldous Huxley

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. – Baruch Spinoza

For psychological purposes the most important differences in conation are those in virtue of which the object is revealed as sensed or perceived or imaged or remembered or thought. – Samuel Alexander

For to constitute Happiness, there must be, as we have said, complete virtue and a complete life. – Aristotle

For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. – Steven Pressfield

For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine. – Matthew Prior

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. – Thomas Hobbes

‘Forgive us our virtues.’ That is what we should ask of our neighbors. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. – Indira Gandhi

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. – John Locke

Fortune is the companion of virtue.Virtutis fortuna comes. – Motto of the Duke of Wellington

Free speech may be a right, but only by using it as a force for good in the world do we make it a virtue. – Ephraim Mirvis

Freedom means that the spirit voluntarily limits itself to nothing other than sublime feelings and thoughts, and serves no principles other than goodness and virtue. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. And faith, in turn, requires freedom. You can’t have coerced state-sanctioned religion. It has to be utterly free. – Eric Metaxas

Freedom means that the spirit voluntarily limits itself to nothing other than sublime feelings and thoughts, and serves no principles other than goodness and virtue. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Freedom that rejects virtue is really enslavement. Freedom from virtue is self-defeating, no matter how appealing it may appear when it is marketed. – Donald Demarco

Friendship is a virtue which comprehends all the rest; none being fit for this, who is not adorned with every other virtue. – Mary Astell

Friendship with a man is friendship with his virtue. – Mencius

From faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion referring to God, there arises a double act which bears on the spiritual communion exercised between God and us; the hearing of the word and prayer. – William Ames

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. – Jean de La Bruyère

From virtue all happy states arise. – Gampopa

Frugality includes all the other virtues. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Frugality is the mother of all virtues. – Justinian I

Generosity is a virtue, but unlimited generosity is a fast route to bankruptcy. – Bret Stephens

Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright. – Van Wyck Brooks

German virtues are now about technically good players playing attacking football. – Joachim Low

Get to part B, Daniel. Think fast. Patience is a virtue, and you know how Cam feels about those. – Lauren Kate

Give credit where credit is due. – M. Floy

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Go in thy native innocence, rely On what thou hast of virtue, summon all, For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine. – Robert Browning

God doesn’t want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity. – Francis Spufford

God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person. – Saint Teresa of Avila

God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance. – Isaac Newton

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

God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more that the restraint of ten vicious. – John Milton

Good art however ‘immoral’ is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise. – Ezra Pound

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. – Izaak Walton

Good example is the best sermon. – Benjamin Franklin

Good government is the outcome of private virtue. – John Jay Chapman

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference. – Aristotle

Good manners are a virtue and are greatly appreciated in whomever they are found. Those with good manners are liked, even if they are uneducated. Communities devoid of culture and education are like rude individuals, for one cannot find in them any loyalty in friendship or consistency in enmity. Those who trust such people are always disappointed, and those who depend upon them are left, sooner or later, without support. – M. Fethullah Gulen

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. – William Cowper

Good-faith re-examination of a position you’ve held in the past should be seen as a virtue, not a vice. – Mark Udall

Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion. – Henry Fielding

Goodness does not consist in greatness but greatness in goodness. – Athenaeus

Grace thou thy house and let not that grace thee. – Benjamin Franklin

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great necessities call out great virtues. – Abigail Adams

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Greed has increasingly become a virtue among Wall Street bankers and corporate CEOs in the U.S. Nowhere else in the world do CEOs insist on receiving compensation as high compared to what their employees earn. – Simon Mainwaring

Guided by nothing but pop culture values, many children no longer learn how to think about morality and virtue, or to think of them at all. They grow up with no shared moral framework, believing that the highest values are diversity, tolerance and non-judgmentalism. – Gary Bauer

Handsome is as handsome does. – Anthony Munday

Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach; but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue. – George Mason

Happiness and Virtue clasp hands and walk together. – Madame Swetchine

Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its foundation. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Happiness depends upon ourselves. – Aristotle

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward. – Baruch Spinoza

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. – Aristotle

Happiness is based on the five senses, while virtue cannot satisfy any of them. – Marquis de Sade

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing. – William Butler Yeats

Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue. – Aristotle

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will. – Thomas Aquinas

Happiness is transparent. … That is its virtue. – Jane Aiken Hodge

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization. – Marquis de Sade

Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind! – Alexander Hamilton

He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. – Winston Churchill

He is good and wise who always speaks the truth, acts on the dictates of virtue, and tries to make others good and happy. – Dayananda Saraswati

He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue. – Benjamin Franklin

He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice, should go a little farther and try to plant a virtue in its place, otherwise he will have his labour to renew; a strong soil that has produced weeds, may be made to produce wheat, with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing. – Charles Caleb Colton

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place. – Charles Caleb Colton

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. – Francis Bacon

He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still. – Charles Caleb Colton

He was a man of his times. with one virtue and a thousand crimes. (The Corsair) – Lord Byron

He was a man who understood the virtue of small things. – Greg Mortenson

He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior. – Confucius

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it. – Confucius

He who is always in a hurry to be wealthy and immersed in the study of augmenting his fortune has lost the arms of reason and deserted the post of virtue. – Horace

He who sows virtue reaps glory. – Leonardo da Vinci

Health, learning, and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience. Private esteem and public honour. – Bilal Zahoor

Hear the words of prudence, give heed unto her counsels, and store them in thine heart; her maxims are universal, and all the virtues lean upon her; she is the guide and the mistress of human life. – Akhenaton

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. – David Hume

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn’t amount to much. – Peter Ustinov

Here at present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking nature – into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue. – Henry James

Here, again, as I conceive, gentlemen forget that this government is a republican one, resting exclusively in the intelligence and virtue of the People. – Caleb Cushing

High birth is an accident, not a virtue. – Pietro Metastasio

Higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue. – Aldous Huxley

Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it’s clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren’t very virtuous. – Alex Tabarrok

Homeliness is the best guard of a young girl’s virtue. – Stephanie Felicite, comtesse de Genlis

Honest women are inconsolable for the mistakes they haven’t made. – Sacha Guitry

Honesty is a selfish virtue. Yes I am honest enough. – Gertrude Stein

Honor is a term much used but little understood. – Regina Maria Roche

Honor is the reward of virtue. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. – John Adams

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it. – Ann Patchett

How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue! – Joseph Addison

How beautiful then is modesty and what a gem among virtues it is. – Bernard of Clairvaux

How great, my friends, is the virtue of living upon a little! – Horace

However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue. – Wilhelm von Humboldt

Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch–as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward. – Ambrose Bierce

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man. – Adam Smith

Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason. – Francis Quarles

Humility is a good estate; founded thereon, the whole spiritual edifice grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Through humility, some have even possessed the gates of their enemies. For which of the virtues is so mighty to subdue the pride of demons and the tyranny of men? – Saint Bernard

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear. – John Selden

Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests. – Max Beerbohm

Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity. – James Lee Burke

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other. – Joyce Meyer

Humility is of central importance; I think it’s an underappreciated virtue in the contemporary discussion of law and politics. – Cass Sunstein

Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false. – George Mikes

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance. – Saint Augustine

Humility is the most beautiful virtue that we can develop. – Joyce Meyer

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues. – Confucius

Humility was considered a great virtue in my family household. No show of complacency or self-satisfaction was ever tolerated. Patting yourself on the back was definitely not encouraged, and pleasure or pride would be punishable by death. – Hugh Laurie

Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don’t. – Richard J. Foster

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot. – Thomas Moore

Humility is like a key to all other virtues. One who is humble may have all other virtues, whereas one who lacks humility usually is deprived of other virtues as well. After his fault, Prophet Adam, upon him be peace, nevertheless recovered, through humility, all of his former connections to the worlds beyond. By contrast, Satan, undergoing the same test as Adam, became the irrecoverable victim of his self-conceit and haughtiness. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue. – Judith Martin

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. – Grover Norquist

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

I admit I can’t shake the idea that there is virtue in suffering, that there is a sort of psychic economy, whereby if you embrace success, happiness and comfort, these things have to be paid for. – Hugh Laurie

I already had three strikes against me. One, I have light skin. Two, I’m from Miami, which wasn’t getting looked at at the time. Three, I’m Cuban. But now, I’ve made everything that stacked against me into a virtue. – Pitbull

I always admired virtue – but I could never imitate it. – Charles II of England

I am a film director, and I work with a visual language, with a visual medium. And I try to make virtue of the use of this visual medium. And I try to make sure what I do speaks the language of cinema. – Luca Guadagnino

I am a very conscientious golfer. I count every stroke. I learned to play that way. That is the only way I can play. It taught me to be honest. There is no greater virtue than honesty. – Martin Sheen

I am and have always been a strong proponent of public education. But by the virtue of its very nature – publicly funded schools cannot offer the type of spiritual education that Catholic schools have long provided. – Mark Foley

I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them. – John Adams

I am no herald to inquire into men’s pedigree; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues. – Philip Sidney

I am not sure how much good is done by moralising about fairy tales. This can be unsubtle – telling children that virtue will be rewarded, when in fact it is mostly simply the fact of being the central character that ensures a favourable outcome. Fairy tales are not, on the whole, parables. – A. S. Byatt

I am suggesting that as we go through life, we ‘accentuate the positive.’ I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort. – Gordon B. Hinckley

I became startled by the extraordinary difference between something whose surface is completely invisible which only makes itself present by virtue of what it reflects, and a window, which doesn’t make itself apparent at all, in the ideal case. – Jonathan Miller

I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind. – Robert Fulghum

I believe that communal admiration of individuals is healthy for society. It facilitates, in one way, the base of our universal standard, morals, but also publicly espouses the virtue of certain practices that are kind of like ‘inherently good’ in some kind of ideas of what the good is. – Jack Gleeson

I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue. Nowhere in the world is loyalty so little revered and tittle-tattle so greatly venerated as in Washington. – James Carville

I believe that saying a thing is to keep its virtues and take away its terror. – Fernando Pessoa

I can make a virtue of slapdash. Slapdash can give you courage. – Sally Phillips

I can’t count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it. – Patrick Rothfuss

I come from this macho Italian neighborhood. When I was thirteen, during those real vulnerable, impressionable years, and a boy starts becoming a man, to make that transition, and you start making decisions, and you start developing virtue and principles – I never made the transition. – Dion DiMucci

I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions. – Jeane Kirkpatrick

I could enjoy the life that I had by virtue of the educational attainment that my grandparents and parents had pursued. Education was always incredibly valued in our family. – Adam Braun

I could live a better life if I had a better mind and a better body. – Ashleigh Brilliant

I courted fame but as a spur to brave and honest deeds; who despises fame will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it. – David Mallet

I design for real people. I think of our customers all the time. There is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothing or accessories that are not practical. – Giorgio Armani

I didn’t get into acting to be a public service announcer or an advocate and yet, by virtue of this show and how we handle the subject matter that we’ve been given, that’s kind of how it’s evolved in certain ways. – Christopher Meloni

I do believe in Christ, but I would not hold myself up as any paragon of virtue at all – far from it, really. – Michael Hintze

I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade — or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere. – Belva Lockwood

I do think vulnerability is a virtue. – Raul Castillo

I don’t know exactly what covetous is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else’s virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it. – Marilynne Robinson

I don’t like it when people ask actors to work for free – on the fringe – as if it’s some kind of virtue. That annoys me – actors should be paid well. – Andrew Scott

I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them. – Boris Pasternak

I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others; but they were incessantly talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. – Alexis de Tocqueville

I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge or Virtue or Goodness or Victory but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe! – Nikos Kazantzakis

I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values. – Mark Waid

I had the virtue of wanting to hang out with people who were more talented than me. I can’t write songs, I can’t perform, I can’t design clubs, but I was an enthusiast. My gift was that I said yes to everybody. – Tony Wilson

I have a deep fascination with human nature, with all its virtues and all its defects. – Edgar Ramirez

I have a pretty good knowledge of the Indian world by virtue of living on several different reservations and being exposed to several different cultures and languages. – N. Scott Momaday

I have always believed in seeking happiness in the happiness of others and the virtue of seeking God’s pleasure in helping His people. – Fethullah Gulen

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him. – Samuel Johnson

I have discovered the virtue of patience and I don’t quite believe that taking a break for good reason can be a risk. – Dia Mirza

I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite. – Andre Gide

I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women. – Confucius

I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it. – Confucius

I have often thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, it is something extremely akin to it. – Robert Burns

I have pushed virtue to outright brutality. – Jean Racine

I have recommended in my writings the study of civic virtues, without which there is no redemption. I have written likewise (and repeat my words) that reforms, to be beneficial, must come from above, that those which come from below are irregularly gained and uncertain. – Jose Rizal

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

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. – George Washington

I know myself too well to believe in pure virtue. – Albert Camus

I know of nothing more valuable, when it comes to the all-important virtue of authenticity, than simply being who you are. – Charles R. Swindoll

I like my clients. All of my clients say, “Peter. You’re talented. But, your best virtue is your discretion.” They really don’t want to be talked about. – Peter Marino

I loathe and detest people who pretend they don’t care what people think about them as if that is a virtue, when it is simply rude. – Jess Phillips

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. – Carl Sagan

I neither drink nor smoke, because my schoolmaster impressed upon me three cardinal virtues; cleanliness in person, cleanliness in mind; temperance. – John Burns

I often think a lot of women’s attraction to vampires is based on the fact that vampires come from centuries ago, from eras of chivalry and courtly virtues. – Stephen Moyer

I prefer a comfortable vice to a virtue that bores. – Moliere

I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue. – Moliere

I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores. – Moliere

I realised I had an issue with my mobile phone use when a friend started explaining the virtues of the Fast 800 diet and, while still engaged in the conversation, I pulled out my phone and ordered the book before they had finished their sentence. – Romesh Ranganathan

I respect a person that has had to fight and howl for his decency. – Tennessee Williams

I returned to Jerusalem, and it is by virtue of Jerusalem that I have written all that God has put into my heart and into my pen. – Shmuel Yosef Agnon

I say that virtue is really all about enjoying yourself, living fully; but of course it is far from obvious what living fully actually means. – Terry Eagleton

I see no virtue where I smell no sweat. – Francis Quarles

I served on the committee in the U.S. House that wrote the Affordable Care Act. I defended it back home in endless town halls. I got elected to the Senate, and when no one wanted to stand up for the ACA in its early days, I took up the cause, going to the Senate floor nearly every week to extol its virtues. – Chris Murphy

I shall produce nothing that will offend the proprieties, whether applied to children or grownups. My pictures are turned out with clean hands and, therefore, with a clear conscience which, like virtue, is its own reward. – Fatty Arbuckle

I take it to be from the greatest extremes, both in virtue and in vice, that the uniformly virtuous and reformed in life can derive the greatest and most salutary truths and impressions. – Deborah Sampson

I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. – Plato

I think as individuals, people overrate the virtues of local food. Most of the energy consumption in our food system is not caused by transportation. Sometimes local food is more energy efficient. But often it’s not. The strongest case for locavorism is to eat less that’s flown on planes, and not to worry about boats. – Tyler Cowen

I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist. It comes out of that Symbolist idea, back to Rimbaud and all that disordering of the senses and all of that being some exalted state. When I’ve been that way, I’ve always been less exalted than I would have liked. – Mary Karr

I think I’ve been very fortunate, considering the obstacles that I had to deal with, you know, just being – by virtue of being a brown, lovely, brown-skinned man. But on the other hand, I’ve been able to make a good living, and I’ve been able to take care of my family, which is most important to me. – Billy Dee Williams

I think it was the ability of the theater to communicate ideas and extol virtues that drew me to it. And also, I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness. – August Wilson

I think many of the virtues and values of the army are very similar to the virtues and values of socialism, of the Labour Party. It’s about looking out for each other, it’s about working as a team, it’s about understanding. – Clive Lewis

I think my greatest virtue is that I have the courage to take tough decisions. As for my greatest fault, I guess I should be a little tougher. The feedback I get always is that I am not as tough and demanding as I should be. – Ajay Piramal

I think my virtue was I never thought “This is impossible. – Ferran Adria

I think that I’ve been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I’ve spent so much time in front of a green screen. – Jonathan Frakes

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they’re doing what they’re doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them. – A. S. Byatt

I used to think consciousness itself was a virtue, so I tried to keep it all in my head at the same time: past, future, etc. – Diane Arbus

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers. – Veronica Roth

I want to present interesting stories that don’t qualify themselves just by virtue of their ethnographic type. – Ajay Naidu

I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue. – J. Paul Getty

I was brought up to do my duty. Not to be vain, not to shout from the rooftops about my virtues – to be modest and well-behaved. I’m totally wrong for show business. – Terry Wogan

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm. – Jean-Paul Sartre

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater

I wrap myself up in virtue. [Lat., Mea virtute me involvo.] – Horace

I’d applied to graduate school for playwriting, and I got rejected by every school. I felt that theatre was closed but that, when it came to film, the door was very slightly ajar. If I have any virtues, it’s that I’m good at walking through doors that are slightly ajar. – Greta Gerwig

I’d like to know what law is it that says that a woman is a better parent, simply by virtue of her sex. – Robert Benton

I’m all for education – in fact, I have spent my career extolling its virtues. – Konnie Huq

I’m an entertainer. I don’t go round saying I’m a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest. – Steve Coogan

I’m just an actor, but if the extra part of it is that I’m helping people or people are being helped by the virtue of what we’re doing, then that’s just a really nice added extra. – Christopher Meloni

I’m not a virtue signaler. – Charlie Baker

I’m not an artist, and I want to take risks, and when the possibility of failure occurs, it’s because the idea is all exciting or interesting as a high wire act, and sometimes you’ve got to fall off, just by virtue of the fact that you’re constantly trying to evolve and do new things. – Peter Morgan

I’m not saying I’m a paragon of virtue, but it’s hard for me not to be honorable. – Wayne Rogers

I’m not saying that atheists can’t act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it’s as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong. – William A. Dembski

I’m old enough to remember in the 1930s and the 1940s when thrift, frugality, was considered an important virtue. – Edmund Phelps

I’m really tired of virtue. – P. J. O’Rourke

I’m very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching. – E. O. Wilson

I’ve always been a night person. There’s a sense of virtue attached to getting up in the morning and doing things and starting the day, and I always felt bad for not being that person. – Bill Skarsgard

I’ve always been a sucker for any technology engineered primarily for the entertainment of the human race – even such technology as has been disguised as ‘useful’ or ‘improving’ when we all know the real virtue lies in its ability to distract and divert. – Lynn Coady

I’ve always been interested in our flaws as human beings, just as much as the virtues. – Nicole Kidman

I’ve been deeply influenced by Aristotle’s idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. ‘The control of the appetites by right reason,’ is how he defined it. – Tim O’Reilly

I’ve been standing up against what I call the ‘virtue signalling’ from Justin Trudeau which actually ignores the real challenges of the day and offers symbolic gestures as a substitute. – Erin O’Toole

I’ve got forward momentum. There’s no virtue in it. It’s just a balancing act. I don’t dare stop. – Lois McMaster Bujold

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. – Benjamin Franklin

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues. – Franz Kafka

If ‘The Blacklist’ taught me anything, it was kind of open-ended intrigue and leaving questions unanswered. Creating this kind of mystery by virtue of depriving the audience of these easy answers was what I was kind of into. – Joe Carnahan

If a given civilization is not based on morality and virtue and nurtured in the pool of intelligence and conscience, it is no more than a passing flash of illuminations that serves a couple rich people and excites some thrill seekers. What a pity for those who are fooled by its blinking lights. – M. Fethullah Gulen

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself. – Friedrich Nietzsche

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless. – Moliere

If evils come not then our fears are in vain; and if they do, fear but augments the pain. – Benjamin Franklin

If I am virtuous and worthy, for whom should I not maintain a proper concern? – Confucius

If I keep my character, I’ll be rich enough. – Plutonius

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue? – Jean de La Bruyère

If no action is to be deemed virtuous for which malice can imagine a sinister motive, then there never was a virtuous action; no, not even in the life of our Saviour Himself. But He has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them. – Thomas Jefferson

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation? – Chanakya

If one must do a wrong, it’s best to do it pursuing power-otherwise, let’s have virtue. – Euripides

If one person in a group of ten is missing the tip of his little finger, I will notice it almost immediately. This extreme attention to visual detail is not a virtue, just a fact of my person. It happens seemingly involuntarily and strikes me as neither good nor bad. – Rosemary Mahoney

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge. – Jean Paul

If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong – if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong – nothing is wrong. – Leonard Bacon

If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity. – John Ruskin

If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue. – Samuel Butler

If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom. – Leo Strauss

If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. ‘If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good. – Confucius

If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran’s. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. – Dinesh D’Souza

If there can be films about why hockey (and not just cricket) is cool, there can be a film or two about the virtues of honest, hard work. – Abhijit Banerjee

If there is a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

If there’s a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud; Through all her works) he must delight in virtue. – Joseph Addison

If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail. – Francis Quarles

If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established. – Algernon Sidney

If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great security. – Samuel Adams

If virtue holds the secret, don’t defer; Be off with pleasure, and be on with her. – Horace

If virtue promises good fortune and tranquility and happiness, certainly also the progress towards virtue is progress towards each of these things. – Epictetus

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it. – Epictetus

If we are born under a lucky star, it shows that we have earned the good fortune thereby Indicated, by forethought, kindness, and our other virtues expressed in previous lives, for we cannot have friends unless we are friendly ourselves. – Max Heindel

If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we’d live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes. – Robert Bolt

If we strive to strengthen our body now; to overcome our faults; to cultivate new virtues; the Sun of our next life will rise under much more auspicious conditions than those under which we now live, and thus we may truly rule our stars and master our fate. – Max Heindel

If we would induce others to act virtuously, it will prove more effectual to show them their capacities than to expose their weakness–to attract them by a fairer ideal than to terrify them by pictures of misery and shame. – E. H. Chapin

If we’re not conscious of sex, than we don’t know we’re having the pleasure. There’s a compromise. By virtue of being human, there’s self-reflection. Sigmund Freud should replace the Gideon Bible in motel rooms. – Francis Levy

If you are a politician who styles yourself as a model of family virtue but are having a secret affair, you have no right to expect it to remain secret. – Robert Rinder

If you are not good for yourself, how can you be good for others. – Spanish Proverb (on character and virtue)

If you are poor, distinguish yourself by your virtues; if rich, by your good deeds. – Joseph Joubert

If you aren’t talking to your kids about socialism, someone else is. So use car time, dinner time, tax preparation time, and time spent together at your work or small business to teach your child about the virtues of capitalism, the system of government that has lifted more people out of poverty. – Rachel Campos-Duffy

If you believe, as I do, that the scope and range of presidential authority is great, that puts a lot of weight on the civic virtue and decency of the individual who holds the office. – Benjamin Wittes

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue. – Edmund Burke

If you have performed an act of great and disinterested virtue, conceal it; if you publish it, you will neither be believed here, nor rewarded hereafter. – Charles Caleb Colton

If you let culture make tolerance the preeminent virtue, pretty soon you won’t have anything else. – George Marsden

If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had. – I. F. Stone

If you make yourself into a doormat, people will wipe their feet on you. – Belizean Proverb (on character and virtue)

If you want to give men a virtue, first give them a passion. – Joseph Joubert

If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up. – Booker T. Washington

If you were to ask me when I was 17 if I was mad because I didn’t have a deal, I would have probably said, ‘Yeah.’ Now I’m so glad I got it when I got it. People tell you to be patient and wait. Patience is not a virtue of mine, but I think everything definitely happened the right way for me. – Chris Young

If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

If you’ld have a servant that you like, serve yourself. – Benjamin Franklin

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue? – Jordan Peterson

If, when you charged a person with his faults, you credited him with his virtues too, you would probably like everybody. – Lawrence G. Lovasik

Ignorance has its virtues; without it there’d be mighty little conversation. – Sophia Loren

Impatience is a virtue. – Ursula Burns

In ‘Reclaiming Virtue,’ I argue that we have had an element missing in moral education. That element is ‘affect.’ Affect is simply the technical word for feeling or emotion. – John Bradshaw

In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known. – Thomas Malthus

In a world of deep injustice and violence, a people exists that thinks some can be given time to study. We need you to take seriously the calling that is yours by virtue of going to college. – Stanley Hauerwas

In all circumstances, try to cultivate virtue. – Buddha

In America, we have equated personal business success with public virtue. – Chrystia Freeland

In choosing a hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid. I clearly would have been burned at the stake in another age. – Thomas Gold

In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue — it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues. – Joseph Stiglitz

In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue – is hypocrisy. – Lord Byron

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old. – Alfred Marshall

In every Revolution a dictator is needed to save the state by force, or censors to save it by virtue. – Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. – Mary Wollstonecraft

In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo. – Marilyn Monroe

In Islamic societies, politicians can manipulate almost everything. But thus far, no fundamentalist leader has been able to convince his supporters to renounce Islam’s central virtue – the principle of strict equality between human beings, regardless of sex, race, or creed. – Fatema Mernissi

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. – J. M. Coetzee

In many companies, the person who talks the best usually gets the job. I got snowed by a few of those people over the years. I still think communication is important, but I don’t think there’s always a correlation between being a great communicator and other virtues that make for a great leader. – John Mackey

In many ways, each of us is the sum total of what our ancestors were. The virtues they had may be our virtues, their strengths our strengths, and, in a way, their challenges could be our challenges. – James E. Faust

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self. – William Penn

In my opinion, moderation is a vastly overrated virtue, particularly when applied to work. – Barbara Taylor Bradford

In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural. – Sallust

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice. – Marquis de Sade

In order to take a nation to war, you have to believe mightily in the threat you are facing and the virtue of your cause. – Richard Cohen

In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice. – Jerry A. Coyne

In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue. – Paul Davies

In short, all things that please the natural man in this world, are, to a true Christian, only so many crosses and temptations, allurements of sin and snares of death, that continually exercise his virtue. – Johann Arndt

In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right. – Paul Elmer More

In the 21st century, we face new and more intense global competition, spanning the ambitious and industrious economies from Latin America to Asia. To meet the challenge, Britain must rediscover and reward the lost virtue of hard work – a tried and tested route to individual success, national prosperity, and a fairer society. – Dominic Raab

In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. – Aleister Crowley

In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention. – Simone Weil

In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue. – James Q. Wilson

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue. – Saint Ignatius

In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa. – Samuel Butler

In the nineties, the PT had wrongly decided to attribute its electoral failures to its virtues. – Fernando Haddad

In the non-internet world where behavior is observable and people are accountable, virtue is easy to spot. – Dave Huntoon

In the world in which we live, truth is an ancillary virtue, but it shouldn’t be. – Jonathan Dimbleby

In this country, most people feel that being successful in their business is a virtue, not a vice, and once we begin to identify it as a vice, this country is going down. – John Fleming

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

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. – Herman Melville

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. – Thomas Jefferson

Indeed, in foreign policymaking, inconsistency is often a virtue. I speak not of principles but of policy. – Richard N. Haass

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. – Mary Wollstonecraft

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. – E. O. Wilson

Industry, economy, honesty, and kindness form a quartet of virtues that will never be improved upon. – James Oliver

Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. Reading – even browsing – an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. Patience is a virtue, gluttony a sin. – James Gleick

Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection. – William Godwin

Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue. – Anatole France

Innocent pleasures are got by virtue and well-earned wealth. – Dayananda Saraswati

Integrity is a very important and an almost indispensable virtue that all leaders must possess. This is especially true in the Philippine context because we Filipinos really respond to leadership by example. – Grace Poe

Invincible: abasht the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Vertue in her shape how lovly, saw, and pin’d His loss. – John Milton

It all seemed a hollow sham now – that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she’d had enough of that; she wanted to live! – Emile Zola

It can fairly be said of John Smith that he had all the virtues of a Scottish presbyterian, but none of the vices. – Menzies Campbell

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. – Abraham Lincoln

It has been my fate in a long life of production to be credited chiefly with the equivocal virtue of industry, a quality so excellent in morals, so little satisfactory in art. – Margaret Oliphant

It ill becomes any of us to take the attitude that all evidence for God is false evidence, beneath consideration, simply by virtue of its being evidence for God, or even by virtue of its being outside the purview of science. – Kitty Ferguson

It is a great virtue to be needed. Greater, even, than being liked. – Susan Wiggs

It is a natural virtue incident to our sex to be pitiful of those that are afflicted. – Elizabeth I

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly. – Aristotle

It is all a mistake that we cannot be good and manly without being scrupulously and studiously good. There is too much mechanism about our virtue. – Charles Henry Parkhurst

It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster. – Rebecca West

It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? – John Quincy Adams

It is better to take many injuries than to give one. – Benjamin Franklin

It is by virtue of the atonement that God can maintain His justice and yet demonstrate His mercy… – R. C. Sproul

It is certain that, because the negligent do not struggle against self, they never achieve peace of soul or do so tardily, and never possess any virtue in its fullness, while the energetic and industrious make notable advances on both fronts. – Saint Ignatius

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. – Samuel Johnson

It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable, and rewarded as an achievement. – Eugene Peterson

It is easy to kick a person when he is down. – Aesop

It is important to recognize and politics positive thinking is often the slaves’ virtue — something that people do to con themselves about the burden and change being placed upon them. – James Bovard

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one. – Jerome K. Jerome

It is in the nature of water … to become transformed into earth through a predominating earthy virtue; … it is in the nature of earth to become transformed into water through a predominating aqueous virtue. – Avicenna

It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings. – Plotinus

It is in virtue that happiness consists, for virtue is the state of mind which tends to make the whole of life harmonious. – Zeno

It is my firm belief that the highest value must be placed on the virtue of each individual, regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. – Tennys Sandgren

It is necessary to make virtue fashionable. – Jose Marti

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is not good for us to trust in our merits, in our virtues or our righteousness; but only in God’s free pardon, as given us through faith in Jesus Christ. – John Wycliffe

It is not safe to trust to the virtue of any people. – Alexander Hamilton

It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them. – Joseph Addison

It is not wrong to strive to be better than a fellow human being. Nor is it wrong to desire to be better or even to feel like oneself is better than a fellow human being. What is wrong is to gloat in one’s own virtue. Therefore, gloating in one’s own virtue is not virtuous. – Christopher Jones

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. – Voltaire

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit. – Anatole France

It is queer how it is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster. – Rebecca West

It is safest to be moderately base — to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue. – Sydney Smith

It is so much easier to extol the virtues of civility than to talk civilly about the virtues we need to uphold. – Amitai Etzioni

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. – Samuel Butler

It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. – Charles Baudelaire

It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity. – Benito Mussolini

It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin. – Confucius

It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. – Charles Baudelaire

It is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere. – Ben Jonson

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

It isn’t right to be obedient only when things go well; it is much harder to be a good, obedient soldier when things go badly and times are hard. Obedience and faith at such time is a virtue. – Wilhelm Keitel

It matters not from what stock we are descended so long as we have virtue; for that alone is true Nobility. – Wellins Calcott

It may be very difficult to keep the virtues of purity, passion, and sacrifice of love in real life. – Lee Min-ho

It must be admitted that the conception of virtue cannot be separated from the conception of happiness-producing conduct. – Herbert Spencer

It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments. – Robert E. Howard

It strikes me that golf’s great virtue is that it gets you out of the house, away from everyday bothers, away from the endless round of looking for this, that and the other. – Craig Brown

It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices. – Eric Hoffer

It turns out that being “a paragon of big-banker virtue” is not at all the same as being a virtuous human being. – Jim Hightower

It were no virtue to bear calamities if we did not feel them. – Suzanne Curchod

It will always be considered a praiseworthy undertaking to urge the most obstinate and incredulous to abide by the principles that impel men to live in society. There are, therefore, three distinct classes of vice and virtue: the religious, the natural, and the political. These three classes should never be in contradiction with one another. – Cesare Beccaria

It’s a very bleak play, but there is some final sense of redemption. ‘Coriolanus’ shows mercy, a Christian virtue in an otherwise un-Christian world. – David Farr

It’s an ill bird that fouls his own nest. – Latin Proverb

It’s my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues. – Abraham Lincoln

It’s true what they say about patience being a virtue; it just happens to be a virtue that I choose not to pursue. – Chelsea Handler

It’s my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues. – Abraham Lincoln

Jesus’ life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue. – John Ortberg

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air. – Henry Grunwald

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. – Francis Bacon

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. – Buddha

Just because you are a learned one does not mean that you are truly human. Learned people are freed from carrying the burden of superfluous information and attain greatness to the extent that they serve humanity and set a good example for others through their high morals and virtues. Otherwise, they are no more than people who have wasted their lives. Those with high morals and virtues, even if they lack learning and are as seemingly dense as iron, may  sometimes prove to be useful and valuable as gold. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Just staying together is not a real virtue, if you’re not happy. Or you’re being denied. Or one person is being squashed. Or you really don’t love each other; you’re just there out of habit. That doesn’t work, no matter how many years you stay together. – Ruby Dee

Justice is happiness according to virtue. – John Rawls

Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie. – Horace Walpole

Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions. – John Rawls

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey. – Denia Diderot

Justice is the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations, while injustice arouses the weakest. – Jose Rizal

Justice is the most “political” or institutional of the virtues. The legitimacy of a state rests upon its claim to do justice. – Alan Ryan

Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices. – Annie Besant

Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation is virtue. Every abiding place outside the bounds of moderation is only exile to the wise man. – Saint Bernard

Kindness is an everyday byproduct of all the great virtues. – Krista Tippett

Kindness is more than a virtue. It is a source of strength. – Vivek Murthy

Kindness is no common virtue. It is a rare gift. – David Samuels

Kindness is no virtue, but a common duty. – Frederick Greenwood

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. – Robert Green Ingersoll

Kindness is virtue itself. – Alphonse de Lamartine

Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues. – Christian Nestell Bovee

Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others. – Sallust

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below. – Alexander Pope

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. – John Henry Newman

Knowledge is porportionate to being… You know in virtue of what you are. – Aldous Huxley

Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it. – Harriet Martineau

Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue. – James Hilton

Laziness is a programmers main virtue. – Larry Wall

Leaders lead by virtue of who they are. – Kevin Cashman

Leadership experts and the public alike extol the virtues of transformational leaders – those who set out bold objectives and take risks to change the world. We tend to downplay ‘transactional’ leaders, whose goals are more modest, as mere managers. – Joseph Nye

Let cunning statesmen praise or blame, Let Fortune turn or go her way, Come instant death, or lingering shame, Firm souls from virtue will not stray. – Bhartrhari

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue. – John Dryden

Let not the piece of virtue which is set Betwixt us, as the cement of our love To keep it builded, be the ram to batter The fortress of it. For better might we Have loved without this mean, if on both parts This not be cherished. – William Shakespeare

Let them (the wicked) see the beauty of virtue, and pine at having forsaken her. [Lat., Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.] – Aulus Persius Flaccus

Let them call it mischief; when it is past and prospered, it will be virtue. – Ben Jonson

Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice;— then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence. – Confucius

Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied. – Mary Wortley Montagu

Let thy virtue be too high for the familiarity of names, and if thou must speak of it, be not ashamed to stammer about it. – Friedrich Nietszche

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority. – Henri Frederic Amiel

Let us keep a firm grip upon our money, for without it the whole assembly of virtues are but as blades of grass. – Bhartrhari

Let us presuppose this much, that the best way of life both separately for each individual and in common for cities is that accompanied by virtue—virtue that is equipped to such an extent as to allow them to take part in actions that accord with virtue. – Aristotle

Let us respect even error when it has its source in virtue. – Sophia Lee

Let us search into the records of Holy Writ, if out of this their great charter, there be not a seal grant of a lesser, though like privilege, and this by virtue of Christ, in that we have the honour to be accounted Abraham’s seed as truly as they. – Thomas Goodwin

Let virtue be the mantle of thy conduct. – Edward Counsel

Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us. – Benjamin Rush

Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one’s will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them. – Paul Gauguin

Light may be produced by candle, by oil, by gas, by electricity: warmth by wood, by coal, by steam. As it would be foolish for the user of one means to disparage all the others, so ’tis foolish to fret because the manner in which others are virtuous differs from ours. – Ivan Panin

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. – H. Jackson Brown

Live your life the way you want your children to live theirs. – Buddha

Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune. – Honore de Balzac

Love is an involuntary reaction to virtue. – Stefan Molyneux

Love is bumping along together with the people in your life and making mistakes and trying to make them right by virtue of the fact that these are people you actually love; you care about them enough to muddle through it with them. – Becky Albertalli

Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater than the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain sense greater than God; while yet, in the highest sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God. Love being the highest principle is the virtue of all virtues; from whence they flow forth. – Jakob Bohme

Love is the expression of one’s values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. – Ayn Rand

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason… – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav’n itself would stoop to her. – John Milton

Love, like virtue, is its own reward. – John Vanbrugh

Magnanimity is above circumstance; and any virtue which depends on that is more of constitution than of principle. – Jane Porter

Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue. – Don Marquis

Man is a political and social animal. – Aristotle

Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue. – John Webster

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth. – Nicolas Chamfort

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Mankind is not special by virtue of our address in the universe, or what spins around us, or because life originated here. Slowly, but surely, we’ve been compelled to renounce the comfort of these beliefs. – Nathan Myhrvold

Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect. – Sydney Smith

Many a man gets a big reputation for Virtue and Morality, when if the truth were known, the poor boob was simply scared of getting caught. – Robert Elliott Gonzales

Many a person has held close, throughout their entire lives, two friends that always remained strange to one another, because one of them attracted by virtue of similarity, the other by difference. – Emil Ludwig

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines. – Paracelsus

Many people think that Puerto Rico would be a Democratic state just by virtue of the inclination of the Latino population in the United States, but the reality is that I see Puerto Rico as a battleground state. – Ricardo Rossello

Many people think that virtue consists of severity towards others. – Alphonse Karr

Many virtues are but disguised vices. – Norman Macdonald

Many wish not so much to be virtuous, as to seem to be. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made. – Gore Vidal

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do. – Steve Coogan

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. – Voltaire

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman. – Ninon de L’Enclos

men love their wives not because of their virtues, but in spite of them. – Margaret Deland

Men sometimes profess attachment to particular virtues, that they may be esteemed free of their opposite vices; and accuse others of what they themselves are guilty, that innocence may be conjectured from desire of justice. – Norman Macdonald

Men’s virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes. – John Dryden

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit. – Benjamin Disraeli

Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. – Thomas Paine

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative. – Henry Kissinger

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues. – Joseph Hall

Modesty and unselfishness – these are the virtues which men praise – and pass by. – Andre Maurois

Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. – John Kenneth Galbraith

Modesty is not one of my virtues. – Alan King

Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues. – Frank W. Abagnale

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. – Joseph Addison

Modesty is policy, no less than virtue. – William Gilmore Simms

Modesty is the color of virtue. – Diogenes

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues. – Oliver Goldsmith

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world. – Miguel de Cervantes

Money and virtue must always be combined. – Albert II, Prince of Monaco

Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. – Ayn Rand

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage. – William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue; and, as is the case with other stopgaps, it is often more difficult to get either out or in through them than through any other part of the fence. – Augustus William Hare

Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. – Karl Kraus

Morals are built on religious faith. Virtue is built on morality and influences a culture. – Michele Bachmann

Morals are a set of noble principles that originate in high spirituality and govern human conduct. For this reason, people who neglect spirituality, and therefore lack spiritual values, cannot sustain conduct in accordance with these principles. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Morals were once thought of as virtues. Today, morals are regarded as a collection of rules for social behavior. I wish people would behave in accordance with those rules, even though they are not virtuous! – M. Fethullah Gulen

More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice. – Robert Smith Surtees

Moreover, virtue is not concerned with the amount of pleasure experienced by the external sense, as this depends on the disposition of the body; what matters is how much the interior appetite is affected by that pleasure. – Thomas Aquinas

Mormons are an extraordinarily educated and professional population. They have all these virtues: They work hard, don’t skip school, have no scandals. Consequently, you find them in a lot of consequential places. – Rodney Stark

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

Most men admire Virtue who follow not her lore. – John Milton

Most of our virtues are gouty from lack of exercise. – Austin O’Malley

Most of the people who have grabbed hold of climate change and greenhouse gases, pollution, oil dependency — they have another motive, and their motive is to attain the appearance of virtue without having actually done anything virtuous. – P.J. O’ Rourke

Most of us have heard the saying, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ That’s a sentiment I value, but another virtue has inspired me to revise that saying. As far as I’m concerned, what’s next to godliness is resourcefulness. – Chris Gardner

Most people are so constituted that they can only be virtuous in a certain routine; an irregular course of life demoralizes them. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Most Republicans and the business community extol the virtues of trade, depicting it as an engine of economic progress, while most Democrats and unions attack the exportation of American jobs, claiming that trade agreements are destroying our economy. – William M. Daley

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction. – Natalie Clifford Barney

Most virtues and flowers bloom best on poor soil. – Austin O’Malley

Most virtues lie between two vices. – Horace

Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren’t virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists – especially emerging ones – won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want. – Jerry Saltz

Much has already been said about the indisputable integrity of men such as AB Bardhan and Prakash Karat. So, why is it that while the sleaze and slime of the political underbelly puts us off, we aren’t warmed by the relative virtue and scrubbed-clean morality of the Marxists? – Barkha Dutt

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. – Plato

My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices. – Sergei Prokofiev

My cinema is an extension of myself. A sort of life-testimony of my vital experience, with my few virtues and my numerous limitations. – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

My failure to lay aside the sin that so easily entangles is the direct result of my refusal to die to my natural proclivity toward attaining my own freedom, meaning, value, worth, and righteousness — not believing that, by virtue of my Spirit — wrought union with Christ, everything I need, I already possess. – Tullian Tchividjian

My father Sam, by his lifelong example, displayed for me the virtues of an honest day’s work and of great personal courage. – Marv Levy

My favourite virtue is not having any. – Ram Gopal Varma

My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once more. – Voltaire

My good intentions are completely lethal. – Margaret Atwood

My hope is that people begin to understand what the fiscal realities are – how economic virtue differs from political virtue – and develop a realization of their individual economic philosophy in comparison to their perceived political ideology. – Kurt Bills

My parents and grandparents have always been engaged in teaching or the medical profession or the priesthood, so I’ve sort of grown up with a sense of complicity in the lives of other people, so there’s no virtue in that; it’s the way one is raised. – Colin Firth

My parents had always preached the virtues of hard work. But hard work is one thing; economic struggle is another. – Sargent Shriver

My son, forbearance is a great virtue; there’s no other like it. – Sarada Devi

My sorrows are overwhelming, but my virtue is left to me. – Jean-Francois Ducis

My whole mood or sense can change by virtue of the music that I’m listening to. It really does affect me on a visceral and emotional level. – Kiefer Sutherland

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. – Marcus Aurelius

Nature does not loathe virtue: it is unaware of its existence. – Francoise Mallet-Joris

Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it. [Lat., Nihil tam alte natura constituit quo virtus non possit eniti.] – Quintus Curtius Rufus

Nature seems at each man’s birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires. – Marquis de Sade

Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races. – Ethel Waters

Neither Left nor Right has a monopoly of virtue when it comes to smearing opponents. – Damian Green

Neither our vices nor our virtues further the poem. – William Dunbar

Never deceive anyone, even if they deceive you. Fidelity and uprightness are two of the highest virtues. Even if following this advice brings you loss, which it usually does, always be faithful and upright. – M. Fethullah Gulen

New solutions win by virtue of adoption, and they don’t get adopted if they’re bad solutions. – John Perry Barlow

Ninety per cent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else? – Sydney J. Harris

Ninoy Aquino was a friend; I knew his faults, which were outweighed by his virtues. – F. Sionil Jose

No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health. – Charles Caleb Colton

No human being is justified before God or has a right standing before God based upon his own virtue and merit. It is only by faith in the virtue and merit of Christ. – Paul Washer

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it. – Ovid

No more verbally incomprehensible no more devoid of the vision thing and no more the cautious pragmatist proudly displaying the virtues of tradition and the advantages of biological seniority. – Bob Dole

No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment. – Claude Adrien Helvetius

No one benefits from us not taking credit for our successes. There is no virtue in allowing kudos to go unclaimed or elsewhere. – Tobias Lutke

No one can be saved – in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved – in virtue of what God can do. – Karl Barth

No one can deny you or grant you anything. It all comes to you by virtue of your vibration. – Esther Hicks

No one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. – Bertrand Russell

No one is hurt by doing the right thing. – Hawaiian Proverb (on good and evil)

No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith. – Paul Kurtz

No one of this nation ever begs, for the houses of all are common to all; and they consider liberality and hospitality amongst the first virtues. – Giraldus Cambrensis

No one who is in this world will deny that evils exist. What, then, do we say? That evil is not a living and animated substance, but a condition of the soul which is opposed to virtue and which springs up In the slothful because of their falling away from good. – Saint Basil

No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous. – Samuel Johnson

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. – William Ellery Channing

No single virtue is, on its own, necessarily virtuous. – Jonathan V. Last

No virtue is more universally accepted as a test of good character than trustworthiness. – Harry Emerson Fosdick

No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. – John Robert Seeley

No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. – Sir John Seeley

No virtuous act can be fully virtuous unless it is freely chosen by the person acting. – James Stoner

No woman is envious of another’s virtue who is conscious of her own. – Charlotte Lennox

No writer besides Shakespeare has created more memorable characters attached to vices and virtues. In even their least sympathetic characters, one senses a kind of helplessness to passion quivering between the poles of good and evil. – Roger Rosenblatt

Nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by one’s actions. – Darren Bateman

Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem. – Jane Porter

Nobody likes to be accused of a virtue. – Patricia Wentworth

Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it. – Mary Wortley Montagu

Non-conformity has always been one of the great British virtues, and that includes non-conformity to things British. – Howard Jacobson

None of my ten friends, even today, ascribes moral evil to Hitler, although most of them think (after the fact) that he made fatal strategical mistakes which even they themselves might have made at the time. His worst mistake was his selection of advisers—a backhand tribute to the Leader’s virtues of trustfulness and loyalty, to his very innocence of the knowledge of evil, fully familiar to those who have heard partisans of F. D. R. or Ike explain how things went wrong. – Milton Mayer

Not beauty, no, but virtue rais’d my fires, whose sacred flame did cherish chaste desires. – Sir William Alexander

Not only virtue, but also insight, not only sanctity but also wisdom, are the duties and tasks of mankind. – Otto Weininger

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one’s own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man. – Satchel Paige

Nothing can be more puritanical in application than the virtues. – Muriel Spark

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. – Robert Green Ingersoll

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue. – Edward Dahlberg

Nothing in the world causes more problems than concepts of ethnic virtue. It’s irrelevant. – Jim Harrison

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. – Andrew Young

Nothing is more comical than seriousness understood as a virtue that has to precede all important literature. – Julio Cortazar

Nothing will be beyond our reach when we make the flames of creating positive deeds flare up across the country with the virtues of the young vanguard as the initial spark and bring into full play the mounting vigour of the millions of young people. – Kim Jong-un

Now virtue may not always be its own reward, but in any case it is not usually bought and paid for at market rates. – Kenneth Arrow

Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you’ll have the miser who’s no liar; and the drunkard who’s the benefactor of the whole city. – Thornton Wilder

O virtue, I have followed you through life, and find you at last but a shade. – Euripides

Obedience is a strong virtue, capable of making me master of my emotions by giving me more strength to conquer my pride as I submit to those above me out of respect for their God-given authority and those below me out of love. – Mother Angelica

Obedience is the crown and honour of all virtue. – Martin Luther

Obstinacy alone is not a virtue. – Albert Camus

Obtuseness is sometimes a virtue. – Antoine Rivarol

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. – Aristotle

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing. – Francis Bacon

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands. – Frances Wright

Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue. – Joseph Joubert

Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally, divest myself. – Robert Dale Owen

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire. – Adela Florence Nicolson

Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair. – Ira Gershwin

Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting. – James Russell Lowell

Once elected, the Pope is by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error. God would change any spend thrift politician into a responsible Pope. – Pope Francis

One becomes truly civilized only when all human virtues and potentialities have been developed to the degree that they become second nature. People who think that civilization means indulging all kinds of desires, and who identify it with outward forms and modern fashions, are those lacking in sound judgment and who have given in to their bodily desires. – M. Fethullah Gulen

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter. – Francoise Sagan

One is not the victim of mentation but instead is the very originator by virtue of intention to extract projected value. With this understanding, one is free from being dominated by the false “I” of the experiencer. – David Hawkins

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. – Maya Angelou

One of my clearest impressions about India as a child was that my parents’ stories would have been impossible had they stayed. Of course, such a vision was self-serving, for it made a virtue of our displacement. – Anand Giridharadas

One of our Constitution’s greatest virtues is that it looks to judges as a source of reasoned, practical, rights-minded decision making. – Neal Katyal

One of the great business virtues of high publishing was that it was a difficult business to enter. You had to stand for something. – Michael Wolff

One of the great virtues of our democratic system is that only one of the candidates gets elected. – Bernard Meltzer

One of the great virtues, apart from the pleasure of performing these works, is that it’s opened up an entirely new, expansive repertoire of American Jewish music. – Neville Marriner

One of the market’s virtues, and the reason it enables so much peaceful interaction and cooperation among such a great variety of peoples, is that it demands of its participants only that they observe a relatively few basic principles, among them honesty, the sanctity of contracts, and respect for private property. – Thomas Woods

One of the properties of virtue is that it does not excite envy. – Antoine Rivarol

One of the real dangers of loyalty is that it may become associated with certain types of group-think, chauvinism, jingoism, and thus become socially destructive in ways that many other virtues are not likely to be when they are corrupted. Nationalism and patriotism are especially prone to misguided excess. – John Kleinig

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination. – Sam Levenson

One path alone leads to a life of peace. The path of virtue. – Juvenal

One seldom loves people for their virtues. – M. V. Heberden

One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real. – Klaus Kinski

One who represents any stage of the truth must try to embody it with honesty, trustworthiness, consciousness of duty, a high degree of perception, awareness of circumstances, farsightedness, and absolute chastity. People who hold high office but lack one or more of these virtues must be seen as having one or more serious defects. This is a clear misfortune for those who follow them. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those who want to reform the world must first reform themselves. If they want to lead others to a better world, they must purify their inner worlds of hatred, rancor, and jealousy, and adorn their outer worlds with virtue. The words of those who cannot control and discipline themselves, and who have not refined their feelings, may seem attractive and insightful at first. However, even if they somehow manage to inspire others, which they sometimes do, the sentiments they arouse will soon wither. – M. Fethullah Gulen

One’s virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune. – Boethius

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love. – George Bernard Shaw

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. – Laurence Sterne

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun…. – William Butler Yeats

Only wisdom and virtue can truly win men’s devotion. – Liu Bei

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be? – Gordon W. Allport

Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer. – Georges Bernanos

Or we fall in love with someone who incarnates the virtues or vices opposite our own. An orderly man who plans his days marries a spontaneous woman who lets things lie where they fall, lives in the moment, and is perpetually late for appointments. – Sam Keen

Our concepts of moral obligation and moral duty are derived from a theological-legal tradition that is no longer dominant. – Elizabeth Anscombe

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect. – Lionel Trilling

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself. – Luc de Clapiers

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result. – Andrew Jackson

Our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. – Oswald Chambers

Our patience will achieve more than our force. – Edmund Burke

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. – Nikola Tesla

Our virtues are like crystals hidden in rocks. No man shall find them by any soft ways, but by the hammer and by fire. – Henry Ward Beecher

Our virtues are made by love, and our sins caused by the lack of it. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. – Juvenal

Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise. – La Rochefoucauld

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our virtues are usually just vices in disguise. – François De La Rochefoucauld

Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we have made it our duty to exercise them that if we come to engage in an activity of a different kind, it catches us off guard and without the slightest awareness that it might involve the application of those same virtues. – Marcel Proust

Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs. – Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth. – Aesop

Over Legislation is not necessarily a virtue. It often leads to misuse of law. – Arun Jaitley

Overt and apparent virtues, bring forth praise; but there be secret and hidden virtues, that bring forth fortune; certain deliveries of a man’s self, which have no name. – Francis Bacon

Pardon is the virtue of victory. – Giuseppe Mazzini

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern. – R. Buckminster Fuller

Parents have the right to claim their children as long as they educate and equip them with virtue. They cannot make such a claim, however, if they neglect them. But what shall we call parents who introduce their children to wickedness and indecency, and cause them to break with humanity? – M. Fethullah Gulen

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Patience is a conquering virtue. – Geoffrey Chaucer

Patience is a virtue in life, of course, but it’s not something we F1 people have too much of. – Niki Lauda

Patience is a virtue, and Americans have it in short supply, – Ann McLane Kuster

Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson. – Elon Musk

Patience is a virtue, but impatience gets things done. – Chelsea Clinton

Patience is a virtue; virtue is a grace. – Jacob Rees-Mogg

Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for. – Lauren Willig

Patience is the courage of virtue. – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

Patience is the greatest of all virtues. – Cato the Elder

Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue. – Ambrose Bierce

Patience, the beggar’s virtue, shall find no harbor here. – Philip Massinger

Patience, they say, is a virtue. Yet in times of emergency, the government needs to be able to make snap decisions and take bold, decisive action to protect the American people. – Jared Polis

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. – Oscar Wilde

Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported by great virtue. – Henry IV of England

Peace is a virtue. A state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice. It is not simply the absence of war. – Wonder Woman

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. – Baruch Spinoza

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. – Baruch Spinoza

Peace is the natural state of man, war the temporary repeal of reason and virtue. – Hans F. Sennholz

Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime. – Victor Hugo

People are stubborn about what they perceive to be the right thing or the wrong thing, and it takes a long time to filter this human condition. There’s a waiting period until people catch up. But if you have patience – which it takes when someone thinks differently from you – everybody always catches up. That patience is a wonderful virtue. – Johnny Mathis

People are usually made Dames for virtues I do not possess. – Edith Sitwell

People demonstrate their own virtue and worth through the success they achieve after facing very tough trials and awkward circumstances. Their success under adverse conditions depends primarily on formulating a realistic plan and then sticking to it. Accordingly, a person’s worth and virtue are proportional to the resulting success, and one’s success is proportional to the degree of prudence exercised before set­ting out on the venture. – M. Fethullah Gulen

People don’t understand the virtue of time, until their clock stops ticking. – Steve Goodman

People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues. – Elizabeth Gaskell

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm. – Denis Diderot

People show their character by what they laugh at. – German Proverb (on character and virtue)

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy. – John Kenneth Galbraith

Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue. – Plato

Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them. – Thomas Aquinas

Perhaps the virtue of coming from a place like Tasmania is that you had the great gift of knowing that you were not the centre of things, yet life was no less where you were. – Richard Flanagan

Persecution is a very easy form of virtue. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Persecution to persons in a high rank stands them in the stead of eminent virtue. – Jean Francois Paul de Gondi

Perseverance – a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. – Ambrose Bierce

Perseverance is a virtue that cannot be understated. – Bob Riley

Persevere in virtue and diligence. – Plautus

Personally I regard idling as a virtue, but civilized society holds otherwise. – J. Maarten Troost

Piety and virtue are not only delightful for the present, but they leave peace and contentment behind them. – John Tillotson

Pigheaded covers a multitude of virtues – as well as sins. – Marjory Stoneman Douglas

PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction – prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. – Ambrose Bierce

Plato said that virtue has no master. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself. – Apollonius of Tyana

Pleasure’s couch is virtue’s grave. – Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne

Pleasures are mortal while the virtues are immortal. – Periander of Corinth

Poetry has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time. – Christopher Fry

Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill. – Alexander Pope

Police boxes, tweed blazers and bow ties feel quite English, but I think that is one of his virtues, one of the strengths of ‘Doctor Who.’ – Matt Smith

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no. – George Savile

Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself. – Diogenes

Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. – J. William Fulbright

Prayer is a virtue that prevaileth against all temptations. – Bernard of Clairvaux

Press freedom has great virtues. It is not about irresponsible scandal-mongering, although that may be part of the picture. It is a means of revealing wrongdoing. – Jacob Rees-Mogg

Prestige podcasts, like prestige television shows, tend to have an audience that believes itself literate, well-informed, and reasonable. Listening to podcasts, in this model, is a form of virtue. – Michelle Dean

Pretending is a virtue. If you cant pretend, you can’t be king. – Luigi Pirandello

Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go. – Ford Madox Ford

Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity. – Adam Grant

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure. – Tacitus

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

Prudence is the virtue by which we discern what is proper to do under various circumstances in time and place. – John Milton

Psychologically experienced consciousness is therefore no longer pure consciousness; construed Objectively in this way, consciousness itself becomes something transcendent, becomes an event in that spatial world which appears, by virtue of consciousness, to be transcendent. – Edmund Husserl

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates. – Don Marquis

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. – Evelyn Waugh

Purpose … is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts. – Aristotle

Purpose without virtue is vanity. – Fernando Torres

Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise. – James Stephens

Quite simply, quite plainly, just by virtue of his being, Obama is America. The first true American to lead our nation. – John Ridley

Rare is the virtue that’s not ruled by Fortune, That stands unshaken even when Fortune flees. – Ovid

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together. – Petrarch

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought. – Simone Weil

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold. – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience. – Ludwig van Beethoven

Reform must come from within, not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue. – James Gibbons

Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs. – Aldo Leopold

Religion is an inexhaustible and blessed source that lays the foundation of true civilization. It is through religion that we are elevated so high in spirit and feelings that we make contact with metaphysical worlds, where we are “fed” to full satisfaction with all kinds of beauty, virtue, and goodness. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Religions don’t own compassion; it is a human virtue. – Karen Armstrong

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. – Dalai Lama

Remind oneself continually of one of those who practiced virtue in days gone by. – Marcus Aurelius

Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness. – William Cullen Bryant

Renown is something people have always wanted, but maybe what’s modern is that it’s considered a virtue, this desire, rather than a vice. I might be wrong about this. – Sheila Heti

Republican government presupposes decent and admirable qualities among its citizens – so we should be serious about strengthening character and inculcating virtue. – Bill Kristol

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. – Joseph Story

Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it. – Jean Genet

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue. – Saint Francis de Sales

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. – Samuel Johnson

Respect all manner of men regardless of their station in life. Compassion is one of the greatest virtues. – Anthony Carmona

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women. – Gordon B. Hinckley

Revolution is usually a bloody affair. Our Revolution of 1911 did not shed much blood because our people are a peace-loving people. This peace-loving quality is the greatest virtue of the Chinese. – Sun Yat-sen

Reward is its own virtue. – Carolyn Wells

Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue; – Aristotle

Romans, make way. The good Andronicus, Patron of virtue, Rome’s best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, With honour and with fortune is return’d. – William Shakespeare

Royalty consists not in vain pomp, but in great virtues. – Agesilaus II

Sadly, the Left is no longer liberal at all, for it has traded in individualism for collectivism, thus placing us into an oppression Olympics where victimhood is a virtue. This post-modernism – this cultural Marxism or whatever you want to call it – can only destroy; it cannot create. – Dave Rubin

Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us whereby our inner being is progressively changed, freeing us more and more from sinful traits and developing within us over time the virtues of Christlike character. – Jerry Bridges

Sanitation and cleanliness are among the humblest of the civic virtues, and it is easy to underestimate their significance. – Ram Nath Kovind

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue. – James Buchan

Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God’s grace. – Charles Spurgeon

Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. – Paul Kalanithi

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea. – Robert Rauschenberg

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices. – R. Buckminster Fuller

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. – Benjamin Franklin

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious. – Thomas Carlyle

Seek virtue and of that posest, to Providence resign the rest. – Benjamin Franklin

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure. – Kingsley Amis

Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone. – Duke Ellington

Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves. – Duke Ellington

Shall I pass by and leave you lying there because of the expedition you led against Greece, or shall I set you up again because of your magnanimity and your virtues in other respects? – Alexander the Great

Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding. – Dominique Bouhours

Silence is the virtue of fools. – Francis Bacon

Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world. – Euripides

Silver is of less value than gold, gold than virtue. – Horace

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret. – Sri Aurobindo

Since human good is what humans ought to pursue, the pursuit of interest to Aristotle is then such activity of soul, that which constitutes human good, namely activity that attains desiderata, where the attainment is in accord with virtue. – Ernest Sosa

Since its appearance on the Earth, humanity has found true peace and happiness in religion. As it is impossible to talk of morality and virtue where people do not practice the true religion, it is also difficult to imagine real happiness, for morality and virtue originate in a good, clear conscience. Religion is what makes one’s conscience good and clear, for it is a connection between humanity and God. Religion is the best school, a most blessed institution founded to inculcate in people good moral qualities. It is open to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Only those who attend it attain peace, satisfaction, and freedom. By contrast, those without religion cannot save themselves from losing everything, including their true identity. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them. – Charles Caleb Colton

Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue. – Confucius

Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? – Dan Brown

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy. – Napoleon Bonaparte

So I fancy my Muse says, when I wish to die, Oh no, Oh no, we are not yet friends enough, And Virtue also says: We are not yet friends enough. – Stevie Smith

So much greater is our thirst for glory than for virtue. – Juvenal

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born. – Edward Dahlberg

So what I do now is to pre-empt that by making the up into a virtue, and telling funny stories about how crap I am before people have a chance to notice it for themselves and think maybe I haven’t realised. – Emily Mortimer

So, to praise others for their virtues can but encourage one’s own efforts. – Nagarjuna

Social democrats are characteristically modest – a political quality whose virtues are overestimated. We need to apologise a little less for our shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements. That these were always incomplete should not trouble us. – Tony Judt

Social taboos are shy like virtue; once lost, there is no remedy. – Gunnar Myrdal

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. – Winston Churchill

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity. – Abraham Cowley

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones. – Sydney Smith

Some economists believe that the Greeks’ work ethic and thrift can pull them through. But the classical virtues can do nothing to offset the dearth of innovation that plagues the economy. – Edmund Phelps

Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues. – Allen W. Wood

Some learned writers . . . have compared a Scorpion to an Epigram . . . because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and virtue of an epigram is in the conclusion. – Edward Topsell

Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired. – Moliere

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness. – Alexander Pope

Some people have an idea that virtue exists only where the blood is cold. – Lewis F. Korns

Some plants become weeds simply by virtue of their success rather than any other factor. You merely want less of them. – Monty Don

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. – William Shakespeare

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity. – Joseph Addison

Somebody might say that they always wanted to be a fly-fishing guide in Montana and maybe they’ll never get to do that but just by the virtue of having said it out loud, I think there’s some power in that. – John Lee Hancock

Someone may ask, ‘How is justice greater than all the other virtues?’ The other virtues gratify the one who possesses them; justice does not give pleasure to the one possessing it, but instead pleases others. – St. Jerome

Sometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty. – David Halberstam

Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed. – Alexander Pope

Sometimes we may learn more from a man’s errors, than from his virtues. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue. – William Bennett

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people. – Sonia Sotomayor

Speaking little and listening much are virtues and signs of maturity. The desire to make oneself heard at all times is a sign of spiritual imbalance and shamelessness, even if some explain it away as a form of insanity. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge. – James Thurber

Sprawling, earnest, and ambitious – its modest title is ‘The Future’ – Al Gore’s new book embodies both the virtues and the flaws of its author. But those hardy souls who slog past the weaknesses will be rewarded by a book that is brave, original and often fun. – Chrystia Freeland

Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity. – David Hare

Strive always to excel in virtue and truth. – Muhammad

Strive to attain to the greater virtues, but do not neglect the lesser ones. Do not make light of a fall even if it be the most venial of faults; rather, be quick to repair it by repentance, although many others may commit a large number of faults, slight and grievous, and remain unrepentant. – Saint Basil

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism. – Walter Lippmann

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues. – Anatole France

Superior virtue must be the fruit of superior intelligence. – William Godwin

Sure, I considered myself an anarchist; I considered myself – I still am, obviously – distrustful of the government. But I also understand the virtues of civility or democracy and kindness, of course. I wasn’t throwing garbage cans through shop windows. – Justin Theroux

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness. – Hosea Ballou

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt. – Joseph Addison

Sweet are the slumbers of a virtuous man. – Joseph Addison

Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of it is fatal to the best talent. – William Gilmore Simms

Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best of talents; it supplies the place of many talents. – William Gilmore Simms

Take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. – Marcus Aurelius

td>Caesar did not merit the triumphal car more than he that conquers himself. – Benjamin Franklin

Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary. – Walter Scott

Teach your daughters to walk in virtue. – Gordon B. Hinckley

Temperance to be a virtue must be free, and not forced. – C. A. Bartol

Tenderness is a virtue. – Oliver Goldsmith

Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country. – Maximilien Robespierre

Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects. – Jenni Rivera

That future depends on the values of self-government, our sense of duty, loyalty, self-confidence and regard for the common good. We are a diverse country, and getting more diverse. And these virtues are what keep this great country together. – Jeff Miller

That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion. – Edward Gibbon

That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert. – Charles Caleb Colton

That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know. – Alexander Pope

That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be. – James Jones

That which leads us to the performance of duty by offering pleasure as its reward, is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The absence of vices adds so little to the sum of one’s virtues. – Antonio Machado

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue. – David Hume

The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood. – William Gilmore Simms

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals. – Jonathan Lethem

The Beatitudes, far from being a new set of virtues that further divide the religious haves and have nots, are words of hope and healing to those who have been marginalized. – James Bryan Smith

The beauty of the horror genre is that you can smuggle in these harder stories, and the genre comes with certain demands, but mostly you need to find the catharsis in whatever story you’re telling. What may be seen as a deterrent for audiences in one genre suddenly becomes a virtue in another genre. – Ari Aster

The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually. – Martin Seligman

The best way to keep good acts in memory is to repeat them. – Cato

The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue. – James Anthony Froude

The bread while becoming by virtue of Christ’s words the body of Christ does not cease to be bread. – John Wycliffe

The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn’t care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable. – Theodore Zeldin

The cardinal virtue of all beauty is restraint. – Elsie de Wolfe

The career of a writer is comparable to that of a woman of easy virtue. You write first for pleasure, later for the pleasure of others and finally for money. – Marcel Achard

The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue. – Samuel Richardson

The characters you refer to as predatory and unsavory are useful. They’re the ones who make a novel into a thriller. They’re active, and most of the common virtues, the signs of a good person, are not. – Thomas Perry

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. – Hippocrates

The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own, and God willingly favors such a confidence. – Michel de Montaigne

The day is not far distant when three Stars and Stripes at three equidistant points will mark our territory: one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal, and the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will be ours in fact as, by virtue of our superiority of race, it already is ours morally. – William Howard Taft

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge. – F. H. Bradley

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. – Alexander Pope

The dream of any scholar has, for me, come true by virtue of this award. The Nobel Prizes are justly famous in the hard sciences, in literature, and for peace. – Paul Samuelson

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue. – Baruch Spinoza

The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral – whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love? I want to foster eulogy virtues when I’m in a yoga class or meditation session or any spiritual gathering. Especially if I’m lying in corpse pose. It just makes sense. – Maggie Rowe

The existence of virtue depends entirely upon its use. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue. – Arnold J. Toynbee

The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is. – Samuel Butler

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives. – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

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

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. – Confucius

The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society. – Paul Wellstone

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism. – Paul Keating

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The future of every individual is closely related to the impressions and influences experienced during childhood and youth. If children and young people are brought up in a climate where their enthusiasm is stimulated with higher feelings, they will have vigorous minds and display good morals and virtues. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. – Samuel Butler

The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal. – Sallust

The good hate sin because they love virtue. – Horace

The good of man is an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue. – Aristotle

The good refrain from sin from the pure love of virtue. – Horace

The great pleasure that comes from reading poets such as Mark Doty and Marianne Moore is the realisation that the essential virtues – compassion, wonder, humility, respect for the mysterious – are far from conventionally heroic. – John Burnside

The great reason why false virtues pass so well in the world is, that true ones are so seldom near to compare them with. – Fulke Greville

The great theatre for virtue is conscience. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The great virtue of the web, its ease of communication, has also become its Achilles’ heel in that it has polluted the air with meaningless babble and egomaniacal drivel. – Theo Paphitis

The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed. – Publilius Syrus

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue. – Henry IV of England

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. – Rene Descartes

The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not what it can do, but what it can prevent. – J. William Fulbright

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity. – Anatole France

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. – Aristotle

The habit of virtue cannot be formed in a closet. Habits are formed by acts of reason in a persevering struggle through temptation. – Bernard Gilpin

The habit of virtue is a fire-drill in a school which leads confused children through smoke to safety. – Austin O’Malley

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. – Marcus Aurelius

The happy life was related to virtue, and virtue itself was not to be seen merely as an individualistic good but something which must be seen as a social good. – Henry Karlson

The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members. – Charles Kingsley

The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. – Thomas Babington Macaulay

The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done. – Lao Tzu

The home is the chief school of human virtues. – William Ellery Channing

The impression that you are a demigod worried me. I wanted to be like an ordinary human being with virtues and vices. – Nelson Mandela

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. – Winston Churchill

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue. – John Lancaster Spalding

The key virtue of orbital assembly is that it eliminates the tight connection between the size of the expedition and the size of the rockets used to launch it. – Henry Spencer

The kind of society which we still have is maybe, in some cases, getting worse. Competition is becoming a virtue. Intense competition drives people to go more and more into self-interest. Even to see other folks as competition. – Major Owens

The land of Beulah lies beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Many Christians spend all their days in a continual bustle, doing good. They are too busy to find either the valley or Beulah. Virtues they have, but are full of the life and attractions of nature, and unacquainted with the paths of mortification and death. – Adoniram Judson

The liberation of Iraq, which is already hard to justify from the perspective of American interests, at least had the virtue of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Despite all the anarchy and violence, life has gotten better for most Iraqis. – Timothy Noah

The loftiest in status are those who do not know their own status, and the most virtuous of them are those who do not know their own virtue. – Al-Shafi’ee

The love of economy is the root of all virtue. – George Bernard Shaw

The love of independence and dislike of unjust treatment is the source of a thousand virtues. – William Godwin

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. – William Hazlitt

The low desire, the base design That makes another’s virtues less. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The machine has had a pernicious effect upon virtue, pity, and love, and young men used to machines which induce inertia, and fear, are near impotent. – Edward Dahlberg

The man Dickens, whom the world at large thought it knew, stood for all the Victorian virtues – probity, kindness, hard work, sympathy for the down-trodden, the sanctity of domestic life – even as his novels exposed the violence, hypocrisy, greed, and cruelty of the Victorian age. – Robert Gottlieb

The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable. – Julian Baggini

The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him. – William Hazlitt

The Menzies Government, by its participation in the plans for the development of other nations, can see the virtue of planning for them but apparently cannot see the virtue of a plan for Australia. – Lionel Murphy

The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all. – Bergen Evans

The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice. – Quintilian

The modern Left is not driven by fairness. It is guided by an ideology of greed and envy. Those are vices, not virtues. – Stephen Moore

The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys. – Charles Caleb Colton

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit. – Aristotle

The more tickets you have in a lottery, the worse your chance. And it is the same of virtues, in the lottery of life. – Laurence Sterne

The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The more we use wisdom and virtue, the more they are our own, and the more we have of them. – Benjamin Whichcote

The most eminent virtue is doing simply what we have to do. – Jose Maria Peman

The most important virtue in politics was once thought to be likeability. But in Corbyn, dislikeable was king. Actually, dislikeability reached its apotheosis in Donald Trump, who exhibited sourness, truculence and negativity in every step and tweet. – Michael Wolff

The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest. – Samuel Smiles

The most precious treasure is virtue. – Buddha

The multitude . . . have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them. . . . It is not safe to trust to the virtue of any people. – Alexander Hamilton

The muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it. – Elizabeth Montagu

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The narrowest path Is always the holiest . – Depeche Mode

The noblest gain from virtue springs, And virtue joy unending brings. – Valmiki

The notion of our leaders as patrician ascetics of unassailable virtue is risible. – Nick Harkaway

The notion that patience is a virtue is something you don’t fully appreciate until you’re a parent. You need endless patience with little ones. – Deirdre O’Kane

The one who understands does not speak; the one who speaks does not understand. – Chinese Proverb (on paradox)

The only rules not meant to be broken are those of love and virtue. – Deacon Jones

The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. – Alfred Whitney Griswold

The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtues consistently. – Maya Angelou

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person’s name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test. – Stephen Vizinczey

The orchid’s association in Chinese culture with such virtues as elegance, good taste, friendship, and fertility goes all the way back to Confucius himself, who was said to have a particular attachment to the flowers. – Lawrence Osborne

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil. – Thomas Malthus

The origin of corruption in politics is surely in the thought that you are the bearer of ultimate virtue. – B. W. Powe

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous. – Jawaharlal Nehru

The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection. – Guillaume Apollinaire

The pleasure of doing good is the only one that will not wear out. – Chinese Proverb (on good and evil)

The points required in Happiness are found in combination of our account of it. For some think it is virtue, others practical wisdom, others a kind of scientific philosophy; others that it is these, or else some one of them, in combination with pleasure, or at least not independently of it; while others again take in external prosperity. – Aristotle

The poor attend to their own virtue in solitude. – Mencius

The practice of patience in crafting and process is a virtue that needs to come back. – Zac Posen

The president, by virtue of his office, can easily ‘go dark’ when it comes to conversations with foreign leaders, even if he makes promises or assurances that run contrary to the interests of the United States or even place the country in danger. – Asha Rangappa

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues. – Elizabeth Taylor

The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself. When a horse and a jockey flew over the track together, there were moments in which the man’s mind wedded itself to the animal’s body to form something greater than the sum of both parts. – Laura Hillenbrand

The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance. – William Shakespeare

The real art of conversation is not only saying the right thing at the right moment but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the most tempting moment. – Unknown

The regular path of virtue is to be pursued without any bend, and from no view to emolument. – Mencius

The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience. – Ninon de L’Enclos

The rewards of virtue alone abide secure. – Sophocles

The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it’s the only one that makes the other virtues possible. – Benjamin Netanyahu

The safeguards of virtue are hateful to the evil disposed. – Aesop

The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side… It has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his psychological health. – Abraham Maslow

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue. – Frances Wright

The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice. – Robert Baden-Powell

The society we live in has always taught us to believe that a woman of substance is one who has great virtues and moral values. – Sherlyn Chopra

The soul that companies with Virtue is like an ever-flowing . It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught; sweet, rich, and generous of its store; that injures not, neither destroys. – Epictetus

The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself, for a certain space of time, in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge, in order to know better the goodness of God towards her. – Catherine of Siena

The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted. – Saint Augustine

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage. – Michel de Montaigne

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts. – Blaise Pascal

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it. – Confucius

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort. – Confucius

The television business, by virtue of what’s happened to streaming, it’s really turned the traditional television business upside down. – Eric Bischoff

The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves. – Richard Rohr

The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. – Larry Wall

The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue – Edgar Rice Burroughs

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. – Plutarch

The virtue lies in the struggle, not in the prize. – Richard Milnes

The virtue of a piece is the writer’s thoughts. – Joan Acocella

The virtue of binary is that it’s the simplest possible way of representing numbers. Anything else is more complicated. You can catch errors with it, it’s unambiguous in its reading, there are lots of good things about binary. So it is very, very simple once you learn how to read it. – George M. Whitesides

The virtue of books is to be readable. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The virtue of Christianity is obedience. – Julius Charles Hare

The virtue of democracy is that is has placed limits on the absoluteness of power. – Robert Morrison MacIver

The virtue of gay equality has become increasingly recognized in the U.S. because people have been persuaded of its merits, not because state officials, acting like Inquisitors, forced people to accept it by punishing them for their refusal. – Glenn Greenwald

the virtue of imagination has this in common with the virtue of courage. Without it, you are less good: with it, you are not necessarily better. – Pamela Frankau

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom. – Aristotle

The virtue of Love is nothing and all, or that Nothing visible out of which All Things proceed. Its power is through All Things; its height is as high as God; its greatness is as great as God. – Jakob Bohme

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

The virtue of obedience makes the will supple… It inspires the courage with which to fulfill the most difficult tasks. – John Vianney

The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience. – Augustus Hare

The virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. – Tiger Woods

The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. – Francis Bacon

The virtue of some people consists wholly in condemning the vices in others. – Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

The virtue of the civil partnerships scheme lay in the attempt to treat the needs of gay and lesbian couples as what they are, not to bundle them into some other category. – John Sentamu

The virtue of the country is that it makes you thirsty for the city. – Sam Waterston

The virtue of women is perhaps a question of temperament. – Honoré de Balzac

The virtue which has never been attacked by temptation is deserving of no monument. – Madeleine de Scudery

The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel. – Oliver Goldsmith

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The virtues are a chain; and, if you break one link, the whole chain is useless. – Austin O’Malley

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought. – Walter Gilbert

The virtues of the blockchain is that it would be that it’s peer-to-peer settlement – no centralized settlement, no manipulation… And most importantly, there’s nothing to capture. It’s consensus based. It’s stateless. – Patrick M. Byrne

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast. – Buddha

The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life. – Sigmund Freud

The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit. – Confucius

The virtuous rest in virtue; the wise desire virtue. – Confucius

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous. – Confucius

The war was a mirror; it reflected man’s every virtue and every vice, and if you looked closely, like an artist at his drawings, it showed up both with unusual clarity. – George Grosz

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. – Francis Bacon

The way to put oneself in a position to take the harder, more honorable political path is to argue for one’s virtues in a vigorous way. – Jon Meacham

The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire. – Mark Twain

The weapon of the Republic is terror, and virtue is its strength. – Georg Buchner

The Western world needs to ally themselves against the evil that is political Islam. To unite with its practitioners would be to unite with evil. Anyone who sees that as a virtue is simply enabling evil and, by proxy, is evil themselves. – Steven Crowder

The whole mystery of temptation is to have sins suggested to us, and to be swept after them by a sudden enthusiasm, which sometimes feels as strong as the Spirit of God ever made in us the enthusiasm for virtue. – George A. Smith

The whole of virtue consists in its practice. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The wise and the brave dares own that he was wrong. – Benjamin Franklin

The wise man would regulate his conduct as a citizen, not according to the established laws, but according to the law of virtue. – Antisthenes

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power. – Amos Bronson Alcott

The word of God is full of sad and grave counsel, full of the knowledge of God, of examples of virtues, and of correction of vices, of the end of this life, and of the life to come. – John Jewel

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom. – Lee Hsien Loong

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die. More than our brother is our chastity. – William Shakespeare

There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend — I am a guilty party here — to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores. – Adam Gopnik

There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries. – Laurence Sterne

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance. – Agnes Repplier

There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors… But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity. – Claude Adrien Helvetius

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. – Oliver Goldsmith

There are some persons on whom virtue sits almost as ungraciously as vice. – Dominique Bouhours

There are some virtues to not saying what you think all the time. – Margaret Atwood

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other. – Charles Caleb Colton

There are two things at which most men are grieved: when their faults are exposed, and when their virtues are concealed. – Norman Macdonald

there are virtues which are very well in the abstract, but which, encountered in the flesh, can be a source of extreme irritation. – Patricia Wentworth

There are virtues which become crimes by exaggeration. – Alexandre Dumas the Elder

There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation. – Lyman Abbott

There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled. – William Edward Hartpole Lecky

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery. – Jean de La Bruyère

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion. – William Hazlitt

There is a measure needing courage to adopt and enforce it, which I believe to be of virtue sufficient to redeem the nation in this its darkest hour: one only; I know of no other to which we may rationally trust for relief from impending dangers without and within. – Robert Dale Owen

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. – Thomas Jefferson

There is a patience that cackles. There are a great many virtues that are hen-like. They are virtue, to be sure; but everybody in the neighborhood has to know about them. – Henry Ward Beecher

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true. – Francois Fenelon

There is a tendency around the world today to copy TV culture. And that is not always a virtue. – Francis Arinze

There is a virtue, I must presume, in shamelessness, since by placing on parade the things one does not know, one discovers that no one else knows either. – Robert Ardrey

There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don’t necessarily agree with the people. – Geoff Mulgan

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. – Henry David Thoreau

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. – Charles Caleb Colton

There is hardly any deviancy, no matter how reprehensible in one context, which is not extolled as a virtue in another. There are no natural crimes, only legal ones. – Freda Adler

There is in us more of the appearance of sense and virtue than of the reality. – Margaret of Valois

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy. – Chanakya

There is no greater virtue than honesty. – Martin Sheen

There is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. – Joseph Rago

There is no limit to doing good to others. Those who have dedicated themselves to the good of humanity can be so altruistic that they will even sacrifice their lives for others. However, such altruism is a great virtue only if it originates in sincerity and purity of intention, and if it does not define “others” by racial preferences. – M. Fethullah Gulen

There is no part of the whole course of our Saviour Christ’s life or death, but it is well worthy our looking on; and from each part in it there goeth virtue to do us good. – Lancelot Andrewes

There is no real felicity for man, but in reforming all his errors and vices, and entering upon a strict and constant course of Virtue. – Wellins Calcott

There is no road or ready way to virtue. – Sir Thomas Browne

There is no sanctuary of virtue like home. – Edward Everett

There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail. – Aldous Huxley

There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness. – George Washington

There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. – William Shakespeare

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as ‘caring’ and ‘sensitive’ because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. – P. J. O’Rourke

There is no virtue in poverty. – Joseph Murphy

There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice. – Joseph Addison

There is nothing we abhor so much as to have to be virtuous in private. – Abraham Miller

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. – Erich Fromm

There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning — without altogether recognizing it beneath the disguise of ambiguous behavior which it assumes in his presence. – Marcel Proust

There is regressivity built into the tax code by virtue of its complexity. – Wendy Long

There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither. – Alan Cohen

There isn’t any virtue where there has never been any temptation. – Margaret Deland

There may be a hundred thousand men in an army, who are all equally free; but they only are naturally most fit to be commanders or leaders, who most excel in the virtues required for the right performance of those offices. – Algernon Sidney

There must be in prudence also some master virtue. – Aristotle

There’s an admirable belief about the virtues of meritocracy – that the best ideas prove the best results. It’s a wrong and misguided belief by well-intentioned people. – Mitch Kapor

There’s no credit in not doing what you don’t want to do. There’s no virtue in not falling, when you’re not tempted. – Gilbert Parker

They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular. – John Morley

They define virtue thus—that it is a living according to Nature, and think that we are made by God for that end; they believe that a man then follows the dictates of Nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of reason. – Thomas More

They had been brought up to think that the domestic virtues were self-evident and universal; they had been starved of the knowledge that most attracts the young mind: that the crown of life is the exercise of choice – Thornton Wilder

They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it could be a goddess, had been preferable to many. And now, because it is not a goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained by prayer from Him, by whom alone it can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods vanishes. – St. Augustine

They only have lived long who have lived virtuously. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence. – Norm MacDonald

Think about the fool who by his virtue can be found in a most unusual situation playing jester to the clown. – Gordon Lightfoot

This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural. – Jessica Lange

This is the tax a man must pay to his virtues–they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him, which would have passed without observation in another. – Charles Caleb Colton

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. – William Shakespeare

This unthinking assumption of moral virtue on the Left is frustrating. I saw someone on Facebook talking about capitalist scum, he was angry and thought it was OK because his anger was righteous. – Richard Coles

This world was not created piecemeal. Africa was born no later and no earlier than any other geographical area on this globe. Africans, no more and no less than other men, possess all human attributes, talents and deficiencies, virtues and faults. – Haile Selassie

Those possest of the greatest Virtues are always least pleas’d with the repetition of them … – Eliza Haywood

Those who are firm, enduring, simple and unpretentious are the nearest to virtue. – Confucius

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so. – Aristotle

Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music. – Diogenes

Those who lead the way must set a good example for their followers. Just as they are imitated in their virtues and good morals, so do their bad and improper actions and attitudes leave indelible marks upon those who follow them. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those who stand in the way of virtue shall fail! – Liu Bei

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue. – Hosea Ballou

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues. – Quintilian

Though my conduct on the 10th of August 1792 was the act of my life of which I have most reason to be proud, I will here merely do homage to the worthy martyrs of the national sovereignty and the sworn laws, who, while they supported constitutional royalty, manifested the highest degree of republican virtue. – Marquis de Lafayette

Though pride is not a virtue, it is the parent of many virtues. – John Churton Collins

Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. – Thomas Jefferson

Time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance. – Jonathan Nolan

Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. – George Washington

To … not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues. – Sun Tzu

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

To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions. – Michael Sandel

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue. – Walter Scott

To be evenminded is the greatest virtue. Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature. – Heraclitusthe great

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

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do. – John Adams

To be governed … is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled – by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil feelings and intentions. – William Penn

To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote. – Benjamin Franklin

To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization. – Harriet Beecher Stowe

To be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations. If thou hast not conquer’d thyself in that which is thy own particular weakness, thou hast no title to virtue, tho’ thou art free of other men’s. – William Penn

To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind – this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for. – Henry Van Dyke

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. – Buddha

To equate IQ with human virtue or wisdom or character or a whole variety of other of the most important measures of a value of a person is ridiculous. – Charles Murray

To every object there correspond an ideally closed system of truths that are true of it and, on the other hand, an ideal system of possible cognitive processes by virtue of which the object and the truths about it would be given to any cognitive subject. – Edmund Husserl

To exist is to be betrayed, since we exist for others only by virtue of what we betray of ourselves to them. – Charles Palliser

To live a life of virtue, you have to become consistent, even when it isn’t convenient, comfortable, or easy. – Epictetus

To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness. – Confucius

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect. – Lao Tzu

To save our imperiled honor everything must be sacrificed, even virtue. – Jean Racine

To say of shame – what is it? Of virtue – we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it’s no longer sin. – Algernon Charles Swinburne

To secure integrity there must a lofty sense of duty and a deep responsibility to future times as well as to God. – Joseph Story

To struggle for virtue, is to be virtuous. – Ivan Panin

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. – James Madison

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue. – William Hazlitt

To understand a theory you need to know its context. – Alisdair Macintyre

To Virtue’s humblest son let none prefer; Vice, tho’ descended from the Conqueror. – Edward Young

To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue). – Simone Weil

Tolerance is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things. – E. M. Forster

Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. – Charles Lindbergh

Tolerance is not really a lived virtue; it’s more of a cerebral ascent. – Krista Tippett

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Tolerance it a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness. – James Goldsmith

Too much virtue can be criminal. – Jean Racine

Too much virtue has a corrupting effect. – Sue Grafton

Traveling and being in foreign cultures has always been really stimulating for me, partly because, when I’m living abroad, everything is new and like a puzzle to work out, by virtue of it being a foreign culture. – Joshua Marston

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason. – Alfred North Whitehead

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues. – Alphonse de Lamartine

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods. – Aristotle

True patience is grounded in wisdom and compassion. – Allan Lokos

True valor, on virtue founded strong, meets all events alike. – David Mallet

True virtue is life under the direction of reason. – Baruch Spinoza

True virtue would never liken its rewards to points on a loyalty card, not because it is its own reward, but because it is not something we should practice to accrue future benefits. – Julian Baggini

Trump is not some random, embittered person in a parking lot – he’s the president of the United States. By virtue of his office, he speaks for the country. – George T. Conway III

Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of mankind. – Abdu’l-Bahá

Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don’t need to be told. – Margot Asquith

Try to keep your soul always in peace and quiet, always ready for whatever our Lord may wish to work in you. It is certainly a higher virtue of the soul, and a greater grace, to be able to enjoy the Lord in different times and different places than in only one. – Saint Ignatius

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them. – Voltaire

Ultimately, my more significant agreement is with a virtue tradition that features Aristotle and Descartes. – Ernest Sosa

Unadaptability is often a virtue. – Flannery O’Connor

Uncommon valor was a common virtue. – Chester W. Nimitz

Unfortunately, there are virtues that you can only exercise when you are rich. – Antoine Rivarol

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail. – Walter Lippmann

Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue – perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one. – Milan Kundera

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

Valor would cease to be a virtue, if there were no injustice. – Agesilaus II

Value manifests itself as exchange value, as a quantitatively determined relationship, in virtue of the fact that one commodity can be exchanged for another. – Rudolf Hilferding

Vice and virtue must look much the same to one who calls the whole world “nice”. – Martial

Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps. – Quentin Crisp

Vice is man’s nature: virtue is a habit–or a mask. – William Hazlitt

Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains. – Charles Caleb Colton

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

Vice stirs up war, virtue fights. – Luc de Clapiers

Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue. – Philip Stanhope

Vices are simply overworked virtues … – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! – Charles Dickens

Viewed systematically, religion can be differentiated from other culturally constituted institutions by virtue only of its reference to superhuman beings. – Melford Spiro

Virtually all the trends that matter are making a mockery of the industry’s ritual incantations about the values and virtues of a free press in a free society. – Hodding Carter III

Want of punctuality is a want of virtue. – James Murray Mason

War is a school for virtue. – Aristotle

War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war. – Phil Klay

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. – Steven Pressfield

Washington’s character was rock solid. He came to stand for the new nation and its republican virtues, which was why he became our first President by unanimous choice. – Stephen Ambrose

Watergate is the great liberal illusion that you can have public virtue without private morality. – Clare Boothe Luce

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that. – William Penn

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates. – Denis Diderot

We are more tied to our faults than to our virtues. – Mason Cooley

We are, in the end, a sum of our parts, and when the body fails, all the virtues we hold dear go with it. – Susannah Cahalan

We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives. – James Ellis

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either. – Niccolo Machiavelli

We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it. – John Adams

We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent. – Friedrich Nietzsche

We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it, that governs it by the virtue of its language and savage culture. – Moshe Sharett

We have the universe to roam in in imagination. It is our virtue to be infinitely varied. The worst tyranny is uniformity. – George William Russell

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection. – Jean Paul

We look around us … we find that we exist, we find ourselves reasoning upon the mystery which involves our being … we see virtue and vice, we see the light and darkness, each is separate, distinct; the line which divides them is glaringly perceptible; yet how racking it is to the soul, when enquiring into its own operations, to find that perfect virtue is very far from attainable, to find reason tainted by feeling, to see the mind when analysed exhibit a picture of irreconcilable inconsistencies, even when perhaps a moment before, it imagined that it had grasped the fleeting Phantom of virtue. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition. – Alex Comfort

We might imagine that Jesus had many human faults. He failed most humanly, in my reckoning, when he killed the fig tree just because it didn’t bear any figs for his breakfast; that was a disgraceful, bad-tempered thing to do, and to try and make a virtue of it by saying it was a demonstration of faith only made things worse. – Michael Leunig

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us. – Francis John McConnell

We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtues that he cannot. – G. K. Chesterton

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue. – Plato

We protect virtue so that virtue will protect us. – Ajahn Chah

We should cease to grow the moment we cease to discriminate between virtue and vice. – Mahatma Gandhi

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance. – Wilhelm Wundt

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat. – John Steinbeck

We’re constantly told that all cultures are equal, and that every belief system is as good as the next. And it led to a kind of – and generally, that America was to be known for its flaws rather than its virtues. – Frank Miller

Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound, Which takes not solid virtue for its ground. – Charles Churchill

Wealth and content are not always bedfellows. – Benjamin Franklin

Wealth is useless on the day of wrath, but virtue saves from death. – The Bible

Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; ‘Tis virtue makes the bliss, where’er we dwell. – Wilkie Collins

Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue? – Edgar Rice Burroughs

Were we a rational society, a virtue of which we have rarely been accused, we would husband our oil and gas resources. – M. King Hubbert

What a liberating thing to realize that our problems are probably our richest sources for rising to the ultimate virtue of compassion. – Krista Tippett

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness. – Friedrich Nietzsche

What drew me to conservatism years ago was the fact that it gave discipline a slightly higher status than virtue. This meant it could not be subverted by passing notions of the good. – Shelby Steele

What fervent love of herself would Virtue excite if she could be seen! – Marcus Tullius Cicero

What graces, gifts and virtues the Holy Mass calls down. – Leonard of Port Maurice

What happens if you are the last (the very, very last) of your species, and you die – and humans notice? We live, increasingly, at a time when extinctions are recorded, remembered, and the last animal (or plant) in its line, by virtue of its being last, becomes a kind of celebrity. Its finality becomes a thing to honor. – Robert Krulwich

What I can’t completely understand is most other people’s fascination with what the famous among us do with their lips and the rest of their bodies. Why do ordinary people become the target of this curiosity simply by virtue of the fact that other people recognise their names and faces but know almost nothing else about them? – Alan Alda

What I did by virtue of skipping a lot of classes was get two undergraduate degrees and a master’s in four years. It wasn’t slacking. There were much more productive ways of learning everything than sitting in lectures. – Sal Khan

What I find most injurious to mankind in modern advertising is the constant appeal to material standards and values, the elevating of material things into an end in themselves, a virtue. – Ann Bridge

What I say is that there are not half a dozen papers in the United States which tamper with the news, which publish what they know to be false. But if I thought I had done no better than that, I would be ashamed to own a paper. You have to make everyone connected with the paper believe that accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman. – Joseph Pulitzer

What I think is remarkable is the force of habit and the fact that while we can have a practice for doing something that has been repetitive and established over many, many years, it doesn’t actually mean there’s any virtue to doing it that way at all. – Jonathan Ive

What I’ve learned by going out and playing smaller venues and being more in touch with people is getting feedback, just by virtue of being able to watch the crowd react and watch their faces instead of being blinded by 3,000 spotlights. I’ve realized that you can quickly get out of touch with your audience if you’re not careful. – Ronnie Dunn

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is man’s ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty. – Shinichi Suzuki

What is past is past, there is a future left to all men, who have the virtue to repent and the energy to atone. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

What is superfluous to your poor estate, distribute. This is distributive charity: a virtue so sacred that crimes against it are the forerunner of inevitable doom. – Vincent McNabb

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married? – George Bernard Shaw

What makes Existence really nice Is Virtue–with a dash of Vice. – Harry Graham

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest. – Vernon Howard

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. – Voltaire

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small. – Richard Mentor Johnson

What saves the virtue of many a woman is that protecting god, the impossible. – Honore de Balzac

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions. – Aristotle

What to one man is the virtue which he has sunk below the possibility of aspiring to, is to another the backsliding by which he forfeits his spiritual crown. – George Eliot

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

What you cannot avoid, welcome. – Chinese Proverb

What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own. – Giordano Bruno

What’s vice today may be virtue, tomorrow. – Henry Fielding

What’s virtue in a man can’t be virtue in a cat. – Mary Abigail Dodge

What, after all,is a halo? It’s only one more thing to keep clean. – Christopher Fry

Whatever (its) virtues, (the) writing explores the culture of work but marginalizes work itself. – Maureen Corrigan

When I create a character, particularly my central character, I want someone who is interesting and feels real and who might have quite a few virtues but is unlikely to be perfect, who hasn’t necessarily made all the right choices. – Nick Earls

When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre. – Plato

When I hear of people who weary of each other, I believe it is because they have sought virtues in themselves alone, attractions of physical beauty. Have they based their love on each other’s thoughts? Who can weary of thoughts which change every day? – Anais Nin

When love and skill go together, expect a masterpiece. – John Ruskin

When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him. – Charles Horton Cooley

When Satan’s not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn’t even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while? – Gunter Grass

When the norm is decency, other virtues can thrive: integrity, honesty, compassion, kindness, and trust. – Raja Krishnamoorthi

When the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring, – Alister E. McGrath

When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist. – Akhenaton

When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed. – Friedrich Nietzsche

When virtue is at liberty, so to some extent is vice. – Barbara Amiel

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder. – Lao Tzu

When we are ill, we understand the virtue of life. – Vinod Vinu

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. – Thomas Paine

When we associate with the virtuous we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or at least lose, every day, something of our faults. – Pope Agapetus I

When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice. – Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

When we let our virtue shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. – Joe Everett

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born. – Thich Nhat Hanh

When we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code, but a character. – E. Stanley Jones

When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity. – Martin Seligman

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues. – Honore de Balzac

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you’re older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out. – Casey Stengel

When you cannot be just through virtue, be so through pride. – Eugenio Maria de Hostos

When you experience playing in two different leagues, you learn to adapt; you pick up elements from the best virtues of each culture. – David Silva

When you go to a donkey’s house, don’t talk about ears. – Jamaican Proverb (on courtesy and respect)

When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don’t exist because you’ve crushed anyone’s desire to do the right thing with all these incentives. – Barry Schwartz

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue. – Brian Eno

Whenever there are great virtues, it’s a sure sign something’s wrong. – Bertolt Brecht

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. – Thomas Jefferson

Where much is given, much is required. Our Heavenly Father asks His daughters to walk in virtue, to live in righteousness so that we can fulfill our life’s mission and His purposes. He wants us to be successful, and He will help us as we seek His help. – Margaret D. Nadauld

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt. – Felix Adler

Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue. – Agnes Repplier

Where you were born is less important than how you live. – Turkish Proverb (on character and virtue)

Whereas Jimmy Carter had aggressively pursued anti-merger activity – the imbecilic case against AT&T was prosecuted under President Carter – Mr. Reagan understood the virtue of allowing companies to exploit the synergies of mergers to gain efficiency and lower costs. – Stephen Moore

Wherefore did he [God] create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? – John Milton

Wherever I see some mystique, be it virtue or family, faith or fatherland, there I must commit some indecent act. – Witold Gombrowicz

Which is more misshapen,–religion without virtue, or virtue without religion? – Joseph Joubert

While bars and bolts may baffle the thief, virtue alone will defeat the slanderer. – William Scott Downey

While many of us never knew Ronald Reagan personally, we felt close to him because we shared his lighthearted sense of humor, admired his uncommon virtue, and were moved by his remarkable wisdom. – Randy Forbes

While the soul is in mortal sin, nothing can profit it; none of its good works merit an eternal reward, since they do not proceed from God as their first principle, and by Him alone is our virtue real virtue. – Saint Teresa of Avila

While there are many varieties of grills, each with their own virtues to be sure, I prefer the standard Weber kettle grill. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need any fancy gadgets in order to take advantage of cooking over a live fire. Just a good set of tongs and you’re set. – Barton Seaver

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants. – Edmund Burke

Who follows not virtue in youth cannot fly sin in old age. – Italian Proverb

Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue. – David Mallet

Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits. – Benjamin Franklin

Who sows virtue reaps honor. – Leonardo da Vinci

Wickedness, in various shapes, lifts her proud head, and reigns triumphant; while modest virtue seeks the shades, or pines in want, or groans in chains, or mourns in the dungeon. – William Mcewen

Will. Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies the outrageously virtuous. – Richard Steele

Wisdom alone is true ambition’s aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed. – Alfred North Whitehead

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. – Abigail Adams

Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it. – David Starr Jordan

Wit and valour are qualities that are more easily ascertained than virtue, or the love of wisdom. – Edward Gibbon

With respect to the first of these obstacles, it has often been made a matter of grave complaint against Political Economists, that they confine their attention to Wealth, and disregard all consideration of Happiness or Virtue. – Nassau William Senior

Within the confines of the lecture hall, no other virtue exists but plain intellectual integrity. – Max Weber

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world. – Joseph Addison

Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning. – Winston Churchill

Without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. – Maya Angelou

Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues. – Maya Angelou

Without courage, all other virtues are useless. – Edward Abbey

Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly. – Mignon McLaughlin

Without virtue it is difficult to bear gracefully the honors of fortune. – Aristotle

Without Virtue, there can be no liberty. – Benjamin Rush

Women are as they are; they necessarily have the defects of their virtues. – Honore de Balzac

Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain. – Mary Wollstonecraft

Women’s virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Women’s virtue is man’s greatest invention. – Cornelia Otis Skinner

Writing is simply something you must do. It’s rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. – Harper Lee

Wrong people are wrong not because of their faults but because of their presumed virtues. – William A. Dembski

You a role model by way of someone will model after your role. They’ll model themselves after what they perceive is success. That doesn’t mean they take your morality and virtue seriously. They want what you want, and they’re willing to do what you do to get it. – Killer Mike

You always fashioned yourself as the Empire’s harshest Fist, didn’t you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty’s a virtue. – Steven Erikson

You are what you eat. – German Proverb

You become what you think about. – Buddha

You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. – Maya Angelou

You can’t have virtue without sin. What I’m after is having my characters’ virtues defined by how they operate in a very sinful environment. That’s how you test people. – Frank Miller

You can’t stop a pig from wallowing in the mud. – Yoruba Proverb- West Africa (on character and virtue)

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue. – William Blake

You cannot lift others to virtue on the one hand if you are entertaining vice on the other. – D. Todd Christofferson

You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults. – William Faulkner

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty. – Louisa May Alcott

You have to choose the best, every day, without compromise…guided by your own virtue and highest ambition. – Philippa Gregory

You may have noted the fact that it is a person’s virtues as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with. – Kate Douglas Wiggin

You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody’s been living for them, not even for a single hour. – Robert Musil

You see, as I go along, I’ve come to consider bravery as just about the most pernicious of virtues. Bravery is a horrible thing. The human race has it left over from the animal world and we can’t get rid of it. – James Jones

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. – Sarah Silverman

You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans: great, big, vulgar, bustling people more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt. – Harold MacMillan

You’re worse than decent. You’re virtuous. – Eugene O’Neill

Your “if” is the only peacemaker; much virtue in “if. – William Shakespeare

Your stockings prove your virtues. Be certain they are clean and free of tears. – Emilie Autumn

Your true self is a treasure of all divine virtues. – Ma Jaya

[A] free government . . . cannot be supported without Virtue. – Samuel Williams

[L]iberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted . . . – Algernon Sidney

[M]en will be free no longer then while they remain virtuous. – Samuel Adams

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Virtue Ethics

Virtue Quotes From Wkiquotes

  • Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things.
    • John Adams, Journal entry (6 August 1796).
  • Virtue’s true reward is happiness itself, for which the virtuous work, whereas if they worked for honor, it would no longer be virtue, but ambition.
    • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica.
  • Virtue is the health of the soul.
    • Ariston of Chios, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, fragment 359.
  • If the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them. … He must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and … his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.
    • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1105a28
  • Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean … it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.
    • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), Book II, Ch. 6.
  • Virtue … is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because 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. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
    • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1107a, as translated by W. D. Ross, in The Basic Works of Aristotle (1941), p. 959.
  • If he [Anthony] heard of a good man anywhere, like the prudent bee, he went forth and sought him, nor turned back to his own palace until he had seen him; and he returned, having got from the good man as it were supplies for his journey in the way of virtue.
    • Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Anthony of Egypt § 3 Readings in World Christian History (2013), pp. 131-144
  • He subjected himself in sincerity to the good men whom he visited, and learned thoroughly where each surpassed him in zeal and discipline. He observed the graciousness of one; the unceasing prayer of another; he took knowledge of another’s freedom from anger and another’s loving-kindness; he gave heed to one as he watched, to another as he studied; one he admired for his endurance, another for his fasting and sleeping on the ground; the meekness of one and the long-suffering of another he watched with care, while he took note of the piety towards Christ and the mutual love which animated all. Thus filled, he returned to his own place of discipline, and henceforth would strive to unite the qualities of each, and was eager to show in himself the virtues of all.
    • Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Anthony of Egypt § 4
  • When Heracles was quite a young man and was nearly of the age at which you yourselves are now, while he was deliberating which of the two roads he should take, the one leading through toils to virtue, or the easiest, two women approached him, and these were Virtue and Vice. Now at once, although they were silent, the difference between them was evident from their appearance. For the one had been decked out for beauty through the art of toiletry, and was overflowing with voluptuousness, and she was leading a whole swarm of pleasures in her train; now these things she displayed, and promising still more than these she tried to draw Heracles to her. But the other was withered and squalid, and had an intense look, and spoke quite differently; for she promised nothing dissolute or pleasant, but countless sweating toils and labours and dangers through every land and sea. But the prize to be won by these was to become a god, as the narrative of Prodicus expressed it; and it was this second woman that Heracles in the end followed.
    • Basil of Caesarea, On Greek Literature, Loeb Classical Library, volume 270, p. 399
  • He whose mind is satisfied
    with virtue that has been achieved,
    Who never thinks to stir himself
    And take a meditation subject up,
    Contented with mere virtuousness,
    Nor striving for a higher state—
    His virtue bears the appellation
    Of that partaking of stagnation.
  • Buddhaghoṣa, The Path of Purification, 1:39, p. 18
  • Virtue will have greater claims
    To love, than rank with vice combin’d.

    • Lord Byron, “To E,” Poetical Works, Volume 1
  • Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease.
    • Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, Life in Edwardian England (1969).
  • O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life.
    • Cicero, Tusc. Quæst, Book V. 2. 5. Reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.
  • A difficult form of virtue is to try in your own life to obey what you believe to be God’s will.
    • John Duke Coleridge, Reg. v. Ramsey (1883), 1 CabaM and Ellis’s Q. B. D. Rep. 145; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 244.
  • Persecution is a very easy form of virtue.
    • John Duke Coleridge, Reg. v. Ramsey (1883), 1 Cababd and Ellis’s Q. B. D. Rep. 145; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 244.
  • To be able to practise five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue … gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
    • Confucius, Analects, fifth century B.C.
  • To gain a reputation for virtue, grieve over those you injure.
    • Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987).
  • Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.
    • Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) in the film, Sleepy Hollow (1999).
  • Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.
    • Diogenes of Sinope Stobaeus, iv. 31c. 88
  • How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.
    • W. E. B. Du Bois, The Ordeal of Mansart (1957), p. 275
  • Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1883), p. 59
  • We really seek intelligence not for the answers it may suggest to the problems of life, but because we believe it is life,—not for aid in making the will of God prevail, but because we believe it is the will of God. We love it, as we love virtue, for its own sake, and we believe it is only virtue’s other and more precise name.
    • John Erskine, The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent (1915), pp. 26-27
  • That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.
    • James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (1907), p. 19
  • The cruel man is of misanthropic temperament, and is a man of moods, oscillating from quiet brooding to sudden explosions. If a man like this does not fight this unhappy provision of his soul during his youth, under no circumstances could he a void becoming furious – and foolish. There are those who would leave it up to God, but to ensure justice on the earth, and not fob it off to the Divinity, it is mandatory that people know both virtue and its benefits, since the virtues lead to unity among them, not the war of all against all. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to conserve them, and show that crime can only return misfortunes and destruction, including of the criminal himself. Who is the last victim of his crimes.
    • Frederick II of Prussia, Anti-Machiavel Chapter VIII
  • Only Virtue is sufficient unto herself. She makes us love the living and remember the dead.
    • Baltasar Gracián. In Maxim 300, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647).
  • A command can express no more than an ought or a shall, because it is a universal, but it does not express an ‘is’; and this at once makes plain its deficiency. Against such commands Jesus sets virtue, i.e., a loving disposition, which makes the content of the command superfluous and destroys its form as a command, because that form implies an opposition between a commander and something resisting the command.
    • G. W. F. Hegel, “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate”
  • Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,
    Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis.

    • He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
    • Horace, Epistles. Bk. i, epis. 2. l.
  • “I know, of course, nothing about vice; but I have known virtue when it was very tiresome.”
    “Ah, then it was a poor affair. It was poor virtue. The best virtue is never tiresome.”
    Miss Vivian looked at him a little, with her fine discriminating eye.
    “What a dreadful thing to have to think any virtue poor!”

    • Henry James, in Confidence (1879), Ch. VI. The speakers are Angela Vivian and Bernard Longueville.
  • The appetites weaken a person’s virtue because they are like shoots burgeoning about a tree, sapping its strength, and causing it to be fruitless.
    • John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, as translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD (ICS Publications: 1991), Book 1, Chapter 10, Section 2
  • Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it.
    • David Starr Jordan, “Ideals of Stanford”, quoted in The Land of Sunshine: A Southern California Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Los Angeles, June 1898), p. 11.
  • Some of the most virtuous men are murderers by the fact that they stick to their own principles. Hitler was a virtuous man in the context of his own principles. He initiated a pretty dirty hour as far as humanity was concerned, but the idea is that he did it for his own reasons. They were mad reasons, but he felt that he was sticking to his principles. So even an insane man may have an insane code of ethics.
    • Jack Kirby, “Jack Kirby interview”, Train of Thought #5, (1971).
  • Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.
    • John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) Sec. 70.
  • To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
    • John Locke, Letter to Anthony Collins (29 October 1703)
  • Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues.
    • Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), p. 149.
  • Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.
    • Horace Mann, Thoughts (1867).
  • Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affection of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.
    • Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948).
  • Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,—
    In part she is to blame that has been tried:
    He comes too near that comes to be denied.

    • Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), The Lady’s Resolve (1713).
  • Virtue is not a chemical product, as Taine once described it: it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key. That, I submit, is what has happened in our own lifetime.
    • Lewis Mumford, Values for Survival (1946)
  • Between two vices, virtue does not always dwell, but often, but all too often only weakness and lame impotence.
    • Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, “David Strauss,” § 1.11, cited in W. Kauffman, Nietzsche, p. 136.
  • Virtue is infinitely various. There is no situation in which a rational being is placed, from that of the best instructed Christian down to the condition of the rudest barbarian, which affords not room for moral agency; for the acquisition, exercise, and display of voluntary qualities, good and bad. Health and sickness, enjoyment and suffering, riches and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, power and subjection, liberty and bondage, civilisation and barbarity, have all their offices and duties, all serve for the formation of character: for when we speak of a state of trial, it must be remembered, that characters are not only tried, or proved, or detected, but that they are generated also, and formed, by circumstances. The best dispositions may subsist under the most depressed, the most afflicted fortunes.
    • William Paley Natural Theology Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.
  • Aristotle and the other classics observed that democracy was constantly prone to overestimate those virtues (manly courage, patriotism, piety) that were within the reach of the poor majority, while neglecting those virtues or excellences requiring unusual capacity, education, leisure, and broad political experience.
    • Thomas L. Pangle, Introduction to The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism (Chicago: 1989), p. xix.
  • We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion.
    • Letter to Demetrias by Pelagius as translated by B. Rees, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), pp. 206-210
  • What need is there of long journeying on the land or voyaging on the seas to seek and search for virtue, whose roots have been set by their Maker ever so near us, as the wise legislator of the Jews also says, “in thy mouth, in thy heart and in thy hand,” thereby indicating in a figure, words, thoughts and actions?
    • Philo, Every Good Man is Free, 68.
  • Those who prefer idleness to labor, not only prevent the growths but also wither and destroy the roots. But those who consider inaction mischievous and are willing to labor, do as the husbandman does with fine young shoots. By constant care they rear the virtues into stems rising up to heaven, saplings ever blooming and immortal, bearing and never ceasing to bear the fruits of happiness, or as some hold, not so much bearing as being in themselves that happiness.
    • Philo, Every Good Man is Free, 69.
  • Why do we assert that virtue is unteachable, and thus make it non-existent?
    • Plutarch, “Can virtue be taught”, Moralia, W. Helmbold, trans. (1939), vol. 6
  • God commands (people) to maintain justice, kindness, and proper relations with their relatives. He forbids them to commit indecency, sin, and rebellion.
    • Quran, 16:90
  • Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompts them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honor. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue.
    • François Rabelais, Gargantua, Chapter 57
  • As the saints and prophets were often forced to practise long vigils and fastings and prayers before their ecstasies would fall upon them and their visions would appear, so Virtue in its purest and most exalted form can only be acquired by means of severe and long continued culture of the mind. Persons with feeble and untrained intellects may live according to their conscience; but the conscience itself will be defective. … To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall.
    • William Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (1872), p. 540.
  • People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for morality.
    • Friedrich Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 414.
  • Power, like a desolating pestilence,
    Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
    Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
    Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
    A mechanized automaton.

    • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Book 3, lines 176-180
  • Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces.
    • Virtue is indeed its own noblest reward.
      • Silius Italicus, Punica, Book XIII, line 663
  • In the memory of virtue is immortality,
because it is known both by God and by mortals.
When it is present, people imitate it,
and they long for it when it has gone;
throughout all time it marches, crowned in triumph.

  • Wisdom of Solomon 4:1-2 NRSV
  • Unde clare intelligimus, quantum illi a vera virtutis aestimatione aberrant, qui pro virtute et optimis actionibus, tanquam pro summa servitute, summis praemiis a Deo decorari exspectant, quasi ipsa virtus Deique servitus non esset ipsa felicitas et summa libertas.
    • We may thus clearly understand, how far astray from a true estimate of virtue are those who expect to be decorated by God with high rewards for their virtue, and their best actions, as for having endured the direst slavery; as if virtue and the service of God were not in itself happiness and perfect freedom.
      • Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, Part 2, Prop. 49, Scholium (Dover 1955 p. 126)
  • The tragedy of virtue is that the more obvious, boring, unoriginal, and sermonizing the proverb, the harder it is to implement.
    • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Ethics, p. 65.
  • The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
    • Elizabeth Taylor, as quoted in The Seven Deadly Sins (2000) by Steven Schwartz, p. 23.
  • Virtue cannot be separated into male and female. … The difference is one of bodies not of souls.
    • Theodoret as cited in The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (2012), p. 106.
  • I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman–and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity — the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it — it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.
    • Mark Twain, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”, ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900).
  • Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
    • Nikola Tesla, “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, with Special Reference to Harvesting the Sun’s Energy”, Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900)
  • La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d’un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu, et sans vertu point de religion. Rends-moi esclave, je n’en serai pas meilleur. Le souverain même n’a aucun droit d’employer la contrainte pour amener les hommes à la religion, qui suppose essentiellement choix et liberté. Ma pensée n’est pas plus soumise à l’autorité que la maladie ou la santé.
    • Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force.  Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion.  Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it.  Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty.  My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.
      • Voltaire, “Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry,” Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (1771).
  • A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that, almost, every man is more or less, under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they are not of themselves sufficient to produce a persevering conformity to the refined dictates and obligations of social duty. Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is in vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account—the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it, and we must, in a great measure, ch⟨ange⟩ the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. ⟨No⟩ institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these ma⟨xims,⟩ can succeed.
    • George Washington to a Continental Congress Camp Committee, 29 January 1778 [1]

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert’s Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.
    • James Waddel Alexander, p. 611.
  • We cannot have right virtue without right conditions.
    • Henry Ward Beecher, p. 611.
  • The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.
    • Sir Walter Scott, p. 612.
  • Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world’s unkindly weather.
    • Isaac Barrow, p. 612.
  • No state of virtue is complete, however total the virtue, save as it is won by a conflict with evil, and fortified by the struggles of a resolute and even bitter experience.
    • Horace Bushnell, p. 612.
  • What the world calls virtue is a name and a dream without Christ. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer’s cross, and in the power of His resurrection.
    • Frederick William Robertson, p. 612.
  • A virtuous youth and frugal manhood always create a Pisgah for the veteran in righteousness, from which he may calmly survey the stars, and read his ” title clear to mansions in the skies,” while yet in the flesh he can soar on the wings of meditation above the clouds, and catch glimpses of the heavenly world that lies in the placid and everlasting orient before him.
    • Elias Lyman Magoon, p. 612.

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