Quotes and Sayings about Virtue
"Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice."
- Lyman Abbott
(Related: Life, Virtue, Innocence, March, Temptation, Vice)
"A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice- but as yet unstained."
- Lyman Abbott
(Related: Virtue, Infinite, Possibilities, Vice)
"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
(Related: Money, Virtue, Career, First, Pleasure, Woman, Writer)
"Great necessities call out great virtues."
- Abigail Adams
"Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues."
- Abigail Adams
(Related: Wisdom, Experience, Leisure, Retirement)
"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
(Related: Nature, Virtue, America, Confusion, Constitution, Credit, Honor, Ignorance, Want)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Enemy, Suspicion, Will)
"A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Truth, Virtue, Man)
"Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Affliction, Prosperity)
"Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Virtue, Modesty)
"Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt."
- Felix Adler
(Related: Virtue, Public)
"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 Y. Agnon
(Related: God, Heart, Virtue, Pen)
"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
(Related: Power, Virtue, Heaven, Influence, Modesty, Stars, Woman)
"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
(Related: Life, Heart, Maxims, Prudence, Words)
"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
(Related: Power, Talent, Genius, Charm, Conceit, Danger, Gifts, Goodness, Modesty, Will)
"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
(Related: Thought, Virtue)
"Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge."
- Dante Alighieri
(Related: Knowledge, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Character, Choice, First, Nation, President, Republican, Washington)
"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
(Related: Religion, Faith, Love, God, Hope, Act, Hearing, Prayer, Spiritual, Word)
"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
(Related: Faith, God, Virtue, Faithfulness, May)
"When virtue is at liberty, so to some extent is vice."
- Barbara Amiel
(Related: Virtue, Liberty, Vice)
"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
(Related: Art, Life, Virtue, Authority, Eloquence, Maxim)
"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
(Related: Action, Virtue, Criticism, First, Self)
"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
(Related: Consistency, Courage, Virtue, Potential, Practice)
"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
(Related: Courage, Virtue, Nothing, Practice)
"The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection."
- Guillaume Apollinaire
(Related: Nature, Truth, Purity, Unity)
"Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will."
- Thomas Aquinas
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Man, Will)
"Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them."
- Thomas Aquinas
(Related: Virtue, Perfection)
"There is a tendency around the world today to copy TV culture. And that is not always a virtue."
- Francis Arinze
(Related: Virtue, Culture, Today, World)
"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
(Related: Nature, Habit)
"The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons."
- Aristotle
"Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved."
- Aristotle
(Related: Liberalism)
"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
(Related: Character, Performance, Virtue, Actions)
"The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
- Aristotle
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Justice, Moderation)
"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
(Related: Men, Virtue, Right)
"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
(Related: Art, Habit, Virtue, Act, Excellence, Training)
"All virtue is summed up in dealing justly."
- Aristotle
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Design, Time, People, Virtue)
"Compassion is not a popular virtue."
- Karen Armstrong
(Related: Virtue, Compassion, Popular)
"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
(Related: Death, Virtue, Christian, Exercise, Man, Sin, Temptations, World)
"Affliction is a school of virtue; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning."
- Francis Atterbury
(Related: Virtue, Affliction, Confidence, School)
"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
(Related: Soul, Virtue, Appearance, Humility)
"The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted."
- Saint Aurelius Augustine
(Related: Virtue, Light, Spiritual)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Life, Nature, Quality, Virtue, Care)
"Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."
- Marcus Aurelius
(Related: Education, Virtue, Ability, Glory, Man)
"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
(Related: God, Virtue, Wrong)
"According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Virtue, Ethics, Sentiment)
"The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it."
- Thomas Babington
(Related: Power, Virtue, Proof)
"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
(Related: Character, Being, Goodness, Man, Mind)
"Silence is the virtue of fools."
- Francis Bacon
(Related: Virtue, Fools, Silence)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Integrity, Judges, Witty)
"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
(Related: Wife, Virtue, Children, Fortune)
"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
(Related: Men, Fortune, Giving, Light, Sky, Stars)
"Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set."
- Francis Bacon
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Government, Virtue, Laws, Nothing, Order, Slavery, states, Wrong)
"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
(Related: Exaggeration, Legends, Popular, Vices)
"Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world."
- Walter Bagehot
(Related: Conquest, Military, Valor, World)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Friend, Virtue, Enemy, Right, Suspicion, Wrong)
"Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue."
- Hosea Ballou
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Vice)
"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
(Related: Love, Women, Credit, Nothing)
"Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul."
- Honore de Balzac
(Related: Soul, Virtue, Nothing, Politeness)
"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
(Related: Beauty, Truth, Soul, Virtue, Infinite, Justice, Law)
"Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction."
- Natalie Clifford Barney
(Related: Virtue, Seduction)
"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
(Related: God, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Poetry, Time, Virtue, Being, Wine)
"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
(Related: Time, Poetry, Virtue, Wine)
"Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests."
- Max Beerbohm
(Related: Virtue, Guests, Humility)
"Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold."
- Ludwig van Beethoven
(Related: Virtue, Children, Gold)
"Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience."
- Ludwig van Beethoven
(Related: Experience, Money, Virtue, Children)
"A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude."
- Ruth Benedict
(Related: Gratitude, Virtue, Job, Man)
"Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue."
- William Bennett
(Related: Virtue, Thankfulness)
"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
(Related: Sex, Virtue, Law, Woman)
"Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Virtue, Patience)
"Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Success, Perseverance, Virtue, Mediocrity)
"Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Virtue, Fidelity)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Hate, Liberty, Race, Slavery, World)
"The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue."
- Henry Bolingbroke
(Related: Art, Virtue, Cause, Vice)
"Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported by great virtue."
- Henry Bolingbroke
(Related: Patriotism, Virtue)
"Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: History, Virtue, Philosophy, Skepticism)
"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Courage, Virtue, Endurance, Fatigue, First)
"Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Men, Vices)
"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
(Related: Change, Politics, People, Positive, Virtue, Being, Burden, Positive thinking)
"As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue."
- Christian Nestell Bovee
(Related: Virtue, Affliction)
"The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge."
- F. H. Bradley
(Related: Virtue, Self)
"Whenever there are great virtues, it's a sure sign something's wrong."
- Bertolt Brecht
(Related: Wrong)
"Dali is like a man who hesitates between talent and genius, or, as one might once have said, between vice and virtue."
- Andre Breton
(Related: Talent, Genius, Virtue, Man, Vice)
"Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright."
- Van Wyck Brooks
(Related: Genius, Virtue)
"Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase are fruits of innocence and blessedness."
- William C. Bryant
(Related: Virtue, Innocence, Remorse)
"The weapon of the Republic is terror, and virtue is its strength."
- Georg Buchner
(Related: Strength, Virtue, Terror)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Peace, Wisdom, Family, Health, Control, Discipline, Virtue, First, Man, Mind, Will)
"The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast."
- Buddha
"Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good."
- Buddha
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Wisdom, Life, Virtue, Deeds, Earth, Guidance, Light, Mind, Needs)
"For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness."
- Thomas Bulfinch
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Literature, Mythology)
"Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue."
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
(Related: Virtue, Echo, Remorse)
"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
(Related: Men, Virtue, Energy, Future, Past)
"If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues."
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
(Related: Faults)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Rest)
"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
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Folly, Liberty, Madness, Restraint, Vice)
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Government, Virtue, Act, Compromise, Enjoyment)
"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
(Related: Heart, Virtue, Moderation, Shame, Will)
"If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Health, Virtue, May)
"I neither drink nor smoke, because my schoolmaster impressed upon me three cardinal virtues; cleanliness in person, cleanliness in mind; temperance."
- John Burns
(Related: Cleanliness, Mind, Temperance)
"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 Burroghs
(Related: Virtue, Desire, Man, Vice)
"Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning."
- William Burroughs
(Related: Happiness, Virtue)
"A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Virtue, Gold)
"If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Virtue)
"In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Compromise, Trifle)
"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."
- George Byron
(Related: Life, Superiority, Virtue, Day, Opinion, Reward)
"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
(Related: Life, Superiority, Virtue, Day, Opinion, Reward)
"In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue - is hypocrisy."
- Lord Byron
(Related: Virtue, England, Hypocrisy)
"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
(Related: Evil, Mind, Vices)
"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
(Related: First, Hospitality, Houses, Liberality, Nation)
"Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil."
- Albert Camus
(Related: Virtue, Evil, Reality)
"Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Beauty, Virtue, Goodness, Secrecy)
"Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease."
- Robert Cecil
(Related: Virtue, Disease, Scandal)
"Virtue is the truest nobility."
- Miguel De Cervantes
(Related: Virtue, Nobility)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Modesty, Poets, World)
"Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth."
- Nicolas de Chamfort
(Related: Truth, Virtue, Man, May)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Contentment, Covetousness, Disease, Mercy, Mind)
"If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?"
- Chanakya
(Related: Virtue, Fame, Man, Value)
"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
(Related: Power, Society, Knowledge, Virtue, Hardship, Influence)
"The home is the chief school of human virtues."
- William Ellery Channing
(Related: Home, School)
"Good government is the outcome of private virtue."
- John Jay Chapman
(Related: Government, Virtue)
"I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it."
- Charles II
(Related: Virtue)
"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."
- Lord Chesterfield
(Related: Virtue, First, Light, Sight, Vice)
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Virtue, Man, Tolerance)
"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
(Related: Man, Temper)
"Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Love, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Failure, Virtue, Envy, Ignorance, Misery, Philosophy, Sharing, Socialism)
"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Vices)
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Virtue, Blessings, Capitalism, Sharing, Socialism, Vice)
"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
(Related: Life, Truth, Action, Virtue, Neglect, Value)
"Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Nature, Habit, Virtue, Mind, Moderation, Reason)
"Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Education, Virtue, Ability, Glory)
"Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Virtue, Glory, Shadow)
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Gratitude)
"Honor is the reward of virtue."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Virtue, Honor, Reward)
"I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Education, Virtue, Ability, Glory, Man)
"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
(Related: Life, Thought, Virtue, Literature, Occupation, Word, Writer)
"Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness."
- Edwin Louis Cole
(Related: Virtue, Faithfulness, Loyalty)
"All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(Related: Sympathy, Virtue, Selfishness)
"The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Excess, Faults, Husbands, Wives)
"Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell."
- Wilkie Collins
(Related: Heart, Virtue, May)
"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
(Related: Health, Company, Disease, Vices)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Energy, Vice)
"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
(Related: Time, Virtue, Vice, Will)
"We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition."
- Alex Comfort
(Related: Virtue, Chastity, May)
"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
(Related: Government, Virtue, May, Stars)
"To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
- Confucius
(Related: Soul, Virtue, Circumstances, Generosity, Gravity, Kindness, Practice, Sincerity)
"The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort."
- Confucius
(Related: Virtue, Comfort, Man)
"Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors."
- Confucius
(Related: Virtue, Neighbors, Will)
"The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue."
- Confucius
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Conflict)
"We are more tied to our faults than to our virtues."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Faults)
"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
(Related: People, Knowledge, Virtue, Foolishness, Solitude, Vanity, World)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Reward, Vice)
"In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless."
- Aleister Crowley
(Related: Willpower, Absence)
"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
(Related: Government, Intelligence, People, Virtue, Forget, Gentlemen, Republican)
"Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue."
- Edward Dahlberg
(Related: Virtue, Nothing)
"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
(Related: Men, Love, Fear, Virtue, Effect, Machine, Machines, Pity)
"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
(Related: Time, Truth, Consideration, Man, Vices)
"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
(Related: Peace, War, America, Inventions)
"Self-sacrifice which denies common sense is not a virtue. It's a spiritual dissipation."
- Margaret Deland
(Related: Virtue, Common sense, Self, Spiritual)
"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues."
- Rene Descartes
(Related: Vices)
"Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!"
- Charles Dickens
(Related: Vices)
"We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates."
- Denis Diderot
(Related: Vices)
"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
(Related: Death, People, Virtue, Feet, Hate, Praise, World)
"Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey."
- Denis Diderot
(Related: Virtue, Complaints, First, Justice)
"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
(Related: Music, Virtue, Neglect, Practice, Sound)
"Blushing is the color of virtue."
- Diogenes
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Men, People, Virtue, Ambition, Fortune, Merit, Moderation, Want)
"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
(Related: Love, Virtue, End, Goodness, Grace, Will)
"Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime."
- Will Durant
(Related: Virtue, Hatred, May, Vice)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Choice, Desire, Mankind, Service, Welfare, World)
"As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"It is a natural virtue incident to our sex to be pitiful of those that are afflicted."
- Elizabeth I
(Related: Sex, Virtue)
"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"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
(Related: Happiness, Peace, Progress, Virtue, Perfection, Promises, Prosperity)
"Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world."
- Euripides
(Related: Virtue, Gold, World)
"There is no sanctuary of virtue like home."
- Edward Everett
(Related: Home, Virtue)
"Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards."
- George Farquhar
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Doctrine, Misery, Religious, Road, Vice, World)
"Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind."
- Francois Fenelon
(Related: Virtue, Extremes, Mind, Moderation)
"What's vice today may be virtue, tomorrow."
- Henry Fielding
(Related: Virtue, May, Today, Tomorrow, Vice)
"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
(Related: Medical, People, Virtue, Grandparents, Profession, Sense, Teaching)
"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"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
(Related: Education, Nature, Virtue, Public, Schools, Spiritual)
"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
(Related: Love, Power, Truth, People, Virtue, Abuse, Will)
"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
(Related: Wisdom, Humor, Virtue, Remarkable, Sense)
"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
(Related: Love, People, Negative, Virtue, Being, Press, Tolerance)
"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
(Related: Time, Virtue, Fact)
"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
(Related: Life, Courage, Pity, Value)
"The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity."
- Anatole France
(Related: Virtue, Curiosity, Man)
"Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue."
- Anatole France
(Related: Virtue, Fortune, Innocence)
"It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit."
- Anatole France
(Related: Virtue, Credit, Poor)
"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
(Related: People, Virtue, American, Reward)
"There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue."
- Erich Fromm
(Related: Virtue, Envy, Feeling)
"The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue."
- James Anthony Froude
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Poetry, Time, Virtue, Attention, Being, Prose)
"Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence."
- J. William Fulbright
(Related: Power, Virtue)
"Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
(Related: Virtue, Vices)
"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
(Related: Art, Knowledge, Virtue, Children, Concern, Manners, Parents)
"People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Related: People, Virtue)
"Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Related: Virtue, Modesty)
"Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave."
- Indira Gandhi
(Related: Forgiveness, Virtue)
"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
(Related: People, Faults, May, Present, Thinking, World)
"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
(Related: Life, Virtue, Evil, Meaning, Nothing, Order, Will, Words)
"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
(Related: Forbidden, Universe, World)
"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
(Related: Age, Virtue, Contempt, Hair, Nothing, Old, Respect, Vice)
"I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue."
- Paul Getty
(Related: Virtue)
"The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought."
- Walter Gilbert
(Related: Science, Thought, Independence, Skepticism)
"I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background."
- Walter Gilbert
(Related: Power, People, Knowledge, Virtue, Religious, Sense)
"Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Vices)
"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
(Related: Age, Virtue, Being)
"Tolerance it a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness."
- James Goldsmith
(Related: Virtue, Apathy, Neighbors, Tolerance, Weakness)
"Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Modesty)
"There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Virtue, Excellence, Faults, Vice)
"Tenderness is a virtue."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Virtue, Tenderness)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Defense, Extremism, Justice, Liberty, Moderation, Pursuit)
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
- Barry Goldwater
(Related: Virtue, Defense, Extremism, Justice, Liberty, Moderation, Pursuit, Vice)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Christ, Privilege)
"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
(Related: War, Virtue, Artist, Clarity, Man, Vice)
"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 Anatole Grunwald
(Related: Virtue, Fault, Horror, Journalism, Wonder)
"Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."
- Joseph Hall
(Related: Moderation, Running)
"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
(Related: Friend, Virtue, Opinion, Sincerity, Understanding, Value)
"The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience."
- Augustus Hare
(Related: Strength, Virtue, Christianity, Obedience)
"Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity."
- David Hare
(Related: Strength, Virtue, Christianity, Obedience)
"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
(Related: Life, People, Strangers, World)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Prison, Project, Utopia)
"Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice."
- Rutherford B. Hayes
(Related: Virtue, Extreme, Mediocrity, Vice)
"There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Religion, Virtue, Crime, Heroism, Vice)
"To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Virtue, Being, Mankind, Race)
"To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Mankind)
"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."
- Claud-Adrian Helvetius
(Related: Love, Men, Virtue, Desire, Glory, Honor, Humanity, Justice)
"Each must in virtue strive for to excel; That man lives twice that lives the first life well."
- Robert Herrick
(Related: Life, Virtue, First, Man)
"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue."
- John Herschel
(Related: Virtue, Self)
"All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance."
- Theodore Hesburgh
(Related: Virtue, Experts)
"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 Hiferding
(Related: Virtue, Fact, Value)
"Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women."
- Gordon B. Hinckley
(Related: Men, Women, Virtue, Beginning, Respect, Self)
"The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words."
- Hippocrates
(Related: Virtue, Language, Nothing, Words)
"Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: War, Force, Fraud)
"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
(Related: Art, Education, Virtue, Culture, Writers, Writing)
"Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it."
- Edgar Watson Howe
(Related: Men, Women, Virtue)
"Virtue has a veil, vice a mask."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Peace, War, Civilization, Virtue, Crime)
"The day has gone by into the dim vista of the past when idleness was considered a virtue in woman."
- Caroline A. Huling
(Related: Virtue, Day, Idleness, Past, Woman)
"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
(Related: Men, Wisdom, Virtue, Consequences, Evil, Extremes, Forget, May)
"Geraldo has been in Lebanon. He has done some excellent reporting out of there, and of course, we now know by virtue of the president's speech on Tuesday night that the terrorist organizations that operate in that area are now on the list."
- Brit Hume
(Related: Virtue, Night, Now, President, Speech)
"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
(Related: History, Virtue, Fancy, Understanding)
"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
(Related: Men, Virtue, Heaven, Hell, Mankind, Vice)
"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
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Consciousness, World)
"There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Talent)
"Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
(Related: Virtue, Kindness)
"Virtue herself is her own fairest reward."
- Silius Italicus
(Related: Virtue, Reward)
"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
(Related: Government, Intelligence, People, Fear, Virtue, Confidence, Despair, Majority, Result)
"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Men, Virtue, Aristocracy)
"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
(Related: Humor, Truth, Virtue, Politeness, Want)
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Dependence, Tools)
"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
(Related: Sympathy, Faults)
"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
(Related: Life, God, Knowledge, Correction, End, Grave, Vices, Word)
"A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue."
- Phillip E. Johnson
(Related: Education, Virtue, Democracy, Trouble)
"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
(Related: Government, Virtue, Rights, Nations, Religious)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Enemy, Liberty, Poverty)
"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
(Related: Opportunity, Courage, May)
"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
(Related: Nature, Human nature, Treason)
"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
(Related: Beauty, Truth, Virtue, Light)
"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
(Related: Life, Character, Virtue, Christ)
"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
(Related: Life, Character, Virtue, Christ)
"Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue."
- Ben Jonson
(Related: Virtue, Past)
"Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it."
- David Starr Jordan
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue)
"Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised."
- Juvenal
(Related: Vices)
"Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues."
- Franz Kafka
(Related: Beginning, Idleness, Vice)
"Many people think that virtue consists of severity towards others."
- Alphonse Karr
(Related: People, Virtue)
"Even a pacifist should admire the military virtues."
- John Keegan
(Related: Military)
"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
(Related: Work, Strength, Being, Cheerfulness, Content, Diligence, Self, Temperance, Will)
"One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real."
- Klaus Kinski
(Related: Man)
"I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions."
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
(Related: Mistake, Virtue, Justice, Salvation)
"Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative."
- Henry A. Kissinger
(Related: Thought, Virtue, Moderation)
"Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Morality, Virtue, Boredom, Disease)
"If we insist that public life be reserved for those whose personal history is pristine, we are not going to get paragons of virtue running our affairs. We will get the very rich, who contract out the messy things in life the very dull, who have nothing to hide and nothing to show and the very devious, expert at covering their tracks and ambitious enough to risk their discovery."
- Charles Krauthammer
(Related: History, Life, Virtue, Discovery, Nothing, Public, Risk, Running, Will)
"Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime."
- Imre Lakatos
(Related: Blind, Commitment, Crime, Theory)
"This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural."
- Jessica Lange
(Related: Idea, Virtue, Selfishness)
"Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself."
- Sidney Lanier
"Conscience is the sentinel of virtue."
- Johann Kaspar Lavater
(Related: Virtue, Conscience)
"God seeth different abilities and frailties of men, which may move His goodness to be merciful to their different improvements in virtue."
- William Law
(Related: God, Men, Virtue, Goodness, May)
"Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention."
- Ninon de Lenclos
(Related: Virtue, Invention, Nothing)
"Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention."
- Ninon de Lenclos
(Related: Virtue, Invention, Nothing)
"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
(Related: Religion, Belief, Values, Virtue, Civil rights, Diversity, Ideals, Parents)
"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
(Related: Imagination, Being, Facts)
"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point."
- C. S. Lewis
(Related: Courage, Virtue, Testing)
"Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much."
- Georg C. Lichtenberg
(Related: Virtue, Worth)
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Experience, Vices)
"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
(Related: Men, Success, Conservatism, Effort, Fanatics, Stability)
"Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Vices, Will)
"The sun as the expression of old world energy is torn down from the heavens by modern man, who by virtue of his technological superiority creates his own energy source."
- El Lissitzky
(Related: Superiority, Virtue, Energy, Expression, Man, Old, Sun, World)
"Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues."
- John Locke
(Related: Support)
"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
(Related: Women, Politics, Sex, Virtue, Law, Literature, Modesty, Trade)
"Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Related: Errors, Man, May)
"Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue."
- Lawrence G. Lovasik
(Related: Virtue, Charity, Cheerfulness, Help)
"If, when you charged a person with his faults, you credited him with his virtues too, you would probably like everybody."
- Lawrence G. Lovasik
(Related: Faults)
"Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount."
- Clare Boothe Luce
(Related: Courage)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Difference, Friends)
"We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either."
- Niccolo Machiavelli
(Related: Virtue, Fortune)
"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
(Related: Life, Men, Example, First, Influence, Man, Principles)
"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."
- James Madison
(Related: Government, Happiness, People, Idea, Virtue, Liberty, Will)
"Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue."
- David Mallet
(Related: Virtue, Fortune)
"True valor, on virtue founded strong, meets all events alike."
- David Mallet
(Related: Virtue, Events, Valor)
"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
(Related: Deeds, Fame, Will)
"Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish."
- David Mallet
(Related: Virtue, Affliction, Honor, Humility, Patience)
"The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil."
- Thomas Malthus
(Related: Virtue, Evil, Temptation)
"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
(Related: Equality, Virtue, Manners, State)
"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
(Related: Nature, Virtue, Actions, May, Modesty, Motive, Passion, Shame, Vice)
"Virtue is the fount whence honour springs."
- Christopher Marlowe
(Related: Virtue)
"Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Virtue, Man)
"Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Business, Punctuality)
"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
(Related: Music, American, Pleasure)
"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
(Related: Age, Life, Time, People, Heroes, Old, Poets)
"It is necessary to make virtue fashionable."
- Jose Marti
(Related: Virtue)
"Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue."
- Judith Martin
(Related: Virtue, Hypocrisy, Sin)
"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
(Related: Help, Laws, May, Observation, Vice)
"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
(Related: Money, Virtue, Ability, Being, Living, Value)
"Ambition, in a private man is a vice, is in a prince the virtue."
- Philip Massinger
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Man, Vice)
"Patience, the beggar's virtue, shall find no harbor here."
- Philip Massinger
(Related: Virtue, Patience)
"Modesty and unselfishness - these are the virtues which men praise - and pass by."
- Andre Maurois
(Related: Men, Modesty, Praise)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Obedience, Public)
"Constancy is the complement of all other human virtues."
- Giuseppe Mazzini
(Related: Constancy)
"We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us."
- Francis John McConnell
(Related: Patriotism)
"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
(Related: People, Virtue, Actor, Being)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Acting, Public, Service)
"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers."
- Herman Melville
(Related: Travel, Virtue, Sin, World)
"Exaggerated self-importance is deemed an individual fault, but a racial virtue."
- Kelly Millar
(Related: Virtue, Fault, Self)
"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
(Related: People, Virtue, Environment, Sin)
"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
(Related: Values, Country, Duty, Future, Loyalty, Self, Sense)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Difference, Present)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Light, Moon, Sea, Sun)
"If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless."
- Moliere
(Related: Heart, Integrity)
"I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue."
- Moliere
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"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
(Related: Work, Virtue, Books, Day, Fame, Famous, Reading, Worth)
"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
(Related: Development, Virtue, Being, Fulfillment, Humanity, Right)
"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
(Related: Trust, Virtue, First, Force, Necessity, Temptation)
"The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage."
- Michel de Montaigne
(Related: Courage)
"Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way."
- Michel de Montaigne
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: God, Virtue, Confidence, Favors, Light, Man)
"Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot."
- Thomas Moore
(Related: Humility)
"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
(Related: God, Men, Virtue, Defense, Humility, Law, Right, State, Will)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Act, Improvement, Mankind, Trouble)
"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
(Related: Funny, People, Virtue, Chance, Now)
"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 K. Murphy
(Related: Government, Development, Virtue, Nations, Participation, Planning)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Consciousness, Mission, State, Unity)
"So, to praise others for their virtues can but encourage one's own efforts."
- Nagarjuna
(Related: Praise)
"I want to present interesting stories that don't qualify themselves just by virtue of their ethnographic type."
- Ajay Naidu
(Related: Virtue, Present, Want)
"The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous."
- Jawaharlal Nehru
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Gain, Pleasure, Religious, Reward, Will)
"Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire."
- Adela Florence Nicolson
(Related: Virtue, Desire, Devotion)
"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
(Related: Woman)
"What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Virtue, Blame, Madness, Praise)
"Of the Marines on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
- Chester W. Nimitz
(Related: Virtue, Marines, Valor)
"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
(Related: Art, Life, Quality, Virtue, Fate, Morals, Production)
"Industry, economy, honesty, and kindness form a quartet of virtues that will never be improved upon."
- James Oliver
(Related: Honesty, Economy, Kindness, Will)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Man)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Integrity, Man, Value, Worth)
"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
(Related: Trust, Courage, Virtue, May, Measure, Nation)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Ceremony, Rights, Law, Property)
"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
(Related: Society, People, Virtue, Competition, Self)
"Competition is such a virtue, and everybody's so busy competing, they have no time for compassion."
- Major Owens
(Related: Time, Virtue, Compassion, Competition)
"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
(Related: Blame, Man, Praise)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Moderation, Temper, Vice)
"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
(Related: Praise)
"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: Virtue, Planning, Posterity)
"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: Virtue, Moderation, Temper, Vice)
"Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man."
- Saskya Pandita
(Related: Blame, Man, Praise)
"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
(Related: Power, Lie, Virtue, Alchemy, Gold, May)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Credit, Want)
"The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts."
- Blaise Pascal
(Related: Strength, Virtue, Man)
"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
(Related: Beauty, Life, People, Virtue, Value)
"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
(Related: Love, Friend, Character, Enemy, Faults, Friends, Reflection)
"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
(Related: Marriage, Beauty, Money, Wife, Friend, Virtue, Body, Mind, Self)
"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
(Related: Love, Virtue, Praise)
"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
"Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together."
- Petrarch
(Related: Beauty, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Existence, Force, Mind)
"Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do."
- Plato
(Related: Virtue, Actions)
"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."
- Plato
(Related: Education, Music, Soul, Virtue, Sound)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Children, First, Importance, Promotion)
"All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue."
- Plato
(Related: Virtue, Earth, Gold)
"Persevere in virtue and diligence."
- Titus Maccius Plautus
(Related: Virtue, Diligence)
"The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education."
- Plutarch
(Related: Education, Lie, Honesty, Virtue, Spring)
"A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues."
- Plutarch
(Related: Vices)
"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."
- Marcus V. Pollio
(Related: Balance, Water)
"Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: Virtue, Content)
"The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: Virtue, Difference, Vice)
"Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: Happiness, Truth, Virtue, Man)
"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
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Country, Glory)
"Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem."
- Jane Porter
(Related: Virtue, Nobility)
"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
(Related: Art, Virtue)
"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
(Related: War, Being, Democracy, Losing, Now, Years)
"For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine."
- Matthew Prior
(Related: Beauty, Virtue)
"Be to their virtue very kind; be to their faults a little blind."
- Matthew Prior
(Related: Virtue, Blind, Faults)
"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
(Related: Government, Intelligence, Courage, Virtue, Popular, Press, Public, Right)
"Virtue is harmony."
- Pythagoras
(Related: Virtue, Harmony)
"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
(Related: Love, God, Heart, Strength, Virtue, Desire, Humility, Man, Reason)
"Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Ambition, Vice)
"A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Virtue)
"Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues."
- Quintilian
(Related: Ambition, Cause, Vice)
"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
(Related: Character, Virtue, Contemplation, Mind, Multiplicity, Variety, Vice)
"Believe me, 'tis a godlike thing to lend; to owe is a heroic virtue."
- Francois Rabelais
(Related: Virtue)
"Too much virtue can be criminal."
- Jean Racine
(Related: Virtue)
"I have pushed virtue to outright brutality."
- Jean Racine
(Related: Virtue)
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue."
- Ayn Rand
(Related: Money, Society, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Love, Character, Values, Expression, Joy, Man, Reward)
"In this era in which we live, the old-fashioned virtues grow increasingly unpopular."
- B. Carroll Reece
(Related: Old)
"Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction."
- Charles Revson
(Related: Virtue, Accuracy, Lady)
"The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue."
- Samuel Richardson
(Related: Women, Virtue, Cause)
"Perseverance is a virtue that cannot be understated."
- Bob Riley
(Related: Perseverance, Virtue)
"Extol Jewish virtue, modern Zionism and the Israeli Defense Forces."
- Geraldo Rivera
(Related: Virtue, Defense)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Country, Democracy, Terror)
"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
(Related: Equality, Love, People, Virtue, Effort, Justice, May)
"It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Credit, Duty, Laziness, Timidity)
"The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Name, Self, Vices)
"Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Company, Vanity)
"The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Interest, Vices)
"The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Self, Vices, Word)
"Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Women, Virtue, Nothing, Quiet, Reputation, Tenderness)
"We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Vices)
"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
"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Virtue, Hypocrisy, Vice)
"Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Reality, Vices)
"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
(Related: Nature, Being, Man, Vices)
"The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Rivers, Sea, Self)
"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
(Related: Women, Virtue, Blind, Man, Wrong)
"Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Related: War, Virtue, State)
"Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us."
- Benjamin Rush
(Related: Virtue, Liberty)
"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: People)
"Every faculty and virtue I possess can be used as an instrument with which to worry myself."
- Mark Rutherford
(Related: Virtue, Worry)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Choice, Lies, Vice)
"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
(Related: Nature, Laws, Now, Vices)
"In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice."
- Marquis de Sade
(Related: Virtue, First, Order, Vice)
"One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter."
- Francoise Sagan
(Related: Power, Laughter)
"Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue."
- Saint Francis de Sales
(Related: Virtue, Reputation)
"In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural."
- Sallust
(Related: Life, Virtue, Practice, Right)
"The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal."
- Sallust
(Related: Virtue, Wealth, Glory, Possession)
"Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others."
- Sallust
(Related: Kings, Mistrust)
"The virtue of some people consists wholly in condemning the vices in others."
- Herbert Samuel
(Related: People, Virtue, Vices)
"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
(Related: Men, Virtue, Crime, Popularity, Will)
"Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius."
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
(Related: Genius, Virtue, Man)
"Virtue is reason which has become energy."
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
(Related: Virtue, Energy, Reason)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Community, Vice)
"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
(Related: Civilization, Virtue, Capitalism, Interest, Logic)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Glory, Honor, Perfection)
"Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary."
- Walter Scott
(Related: Wisdom, Poetry, Children, Grace, Mind)
"No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic."
- John Robert Seeley
(Related: Virtue)
"Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Successful, Virtue, Crime)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Day, Night, Temptation, Today, Vices, Will)
"Crime when it succeeds is called virtue."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Virtue, Crime)
"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
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Wealth, Attention, Complaint, Consideration, First, Grave, Obstacles, Respect)
"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Virtue, Goodness)
"Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Virtue)
"Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Virtue, Sin, Temptation)
"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Virtue, Sin)
"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
(Related: People, Virtue, Country, Culture, Land, Language)
"The love of economy is the root of all virtue."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Love, Virtue, Economy)
"What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?"
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Virtue, Trade)
"Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Love, Beauty, Truth, Knowledge, Virtue, Glory, Humanity)
"Virtue is insufficient temptation."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Virtue, Temptation)
"Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Men, Silence)
"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
(Related: Honesty, Virtue, Play)
"Elegance is inferior to virtue."
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(Related: Virtue, Elegance)
"It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of it's own reason."
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(Related: Being, Exercise, Reason, Result)
"Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed."
- William Shenstone
"My purpose is to inspire people of all walks of life to discover the virtue inherent within them and to bring forth that virtue in their daily lives."
- William Shirley
(Related: Life, People, Purpose, Virtue)
"Christian virtues unite men. Racism separates them."
- Sargent Shriver
(Related: Men, Christian, Racism)
"My parents had always preached the virtues of hard work. But hard work is one thing; economic struggle is another."
- Sargent Shriver
(Related: Work, Hard work, Parents, Struggle)
"If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established."
- Algernon Sidney
(Related: Power, Virtue, Corruption, Liberty, Vice)
"Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of it is fatal to the best talent."
- William Gilmore Simms
(Related: Talent, Absence, First, Tact)
"Modesty is the color of virtue."
- Diogenes of Sinope
(Related: Virtue, Modesty)
"Women's virtue is man's greatest invention."
- Cornelia Otis Skinner
(Related: Women, Virtue, Invention, Man)
"Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage."
- William J. Slim
(Related: Courage, Virtue)
"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience."
- Adam Smith
(Related: Virtue, Conscience, Vice)
"Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man."
- Adam Smith
(Related: Virtue, Generosity, Humanity, Woman)
"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
(Related: God, Enthusiasm, Virtue, Mystery, Spirit, Temptation)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Shame)
"Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Solitude)
"Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Love, Manners, Respect, Shadows)
"The rewards of virtue alone abide secure."
- Sophocles
(Related: Virtue)
"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Peace, War, Virtue, Absence, Benevolence, Confidence, Justice, Mind, State)
"Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Peace, War, Character, Strength, Virtue, Absence)
"The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Virtue, First)
"True virtue is life under the direction of reason."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Life, Virtue, Direction, Reason)
"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
(Related: Peace, War, Virtue, Absence, Benevolence, Confidence, Justice, Mind, State)
"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Virtue, Reward)
"Happiness is a virtue, not its reward."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Happiness, Virtue, Reward)
"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
(Related: Faith, Life, God, Virtue, Christ, Grace, Justification)
"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
(Related: Life, Soul, Virtue, Community, Living, Reflection)
"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
(Related: Credit)
"Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at."
- Laurence Stern
(Related: Nature, Virtue, Human nature)
"Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction."
- Adlai E. Stevenson
(Related: Virtue, Accuracy, Lady)
"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 E. Stiglitz
(Related: Virtue, Debate)
"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
(Related: Intelligence, People, Virtue, Order, Public, Spirit)
"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
(Related: Life, Virtue)
"If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom."
- Leo Strauss
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Man)
"Virtue often trips and falls on the sharp-edges rock of poverty."
- Eugene Sue
(Related: Virtue, Poverty)
"There are criminals who are drug users, but most addicts are criminals only by virtue of prohibition or from resorting to crime to pay inflated black market prices."
- Danny Sugerman
(Related: Virtue, Crime, Prohibition)
"More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice."
- Robert Smith Surtees
(Related: People, Virtue, Vice)
"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
(Related: Change, Music, Virtue, Listening, Sense)
"What is man's ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty."
- Shinichi Suzuki
(Related: Beauty, Love, Truth, Life, Virtue, Direction, Man)
"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
(Related: Kiss, Virtue, Shame, Sin)
"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 Sydney
(Related: Men, Performance, Army, Commanders, Leaders, May, Right)
"Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure."
- Tacitus
(Related: Virtue, Measure, Misfortune, Pleasure, Prosperity)
"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
(Related: People, Pretty, Vices)
"Every act of virtue is an ingredient unto reward."
- Jeremy Taylor
(Related: Virtue, Act, Reward)
"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more."
- Nikola Tesla
(Related: Force, Man)
"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
(Related: Virtue, American, Sense)
"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
(Related: Faith, Life, Virtue, Force, Man, Sense)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Islam, Consciousness, Race, World)
"Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect."
- Lionel Trilling
(Related: Virtue, Act, Culture, Intellect)
"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
(Related: Business, Government, Virtue, Democracy, Dishonesty, Job, Responsibility)
"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
(Related: Truth, Virtue, Beginning, Benevolence, Disorder, Expediency, Right, Shadow)
"To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect."
- Lao Tzu
(Related: Virtue)
"Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: Thought, Virtue, Vice)
"By virtue of believing in a Supreme Being one embraces certain mysteries."
- Robert Vaughn
(Related: Virtue, Being)
"Vice stirs up war, virtue fights."
- Marquis De Vauvenargues
(Related: War, Virtue, Vice)
"Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself."
- Marquis De Vauvenargues
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Time, Virtue, Literature, World, Writers)
"Who sows virtue reaps honor."
- Leonardo da Vinci
(Related: Virtue, Honor)
"Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person."
- Virgil
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Life, Character, Virtue, Name, Needs)
"Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them."
- Voltaire
(Related: Virtue, Laws, Support)
"It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge."
- Voltaire
(Related: Thought, Knowledge, Virtue, Ignorance, Spirit, Superstition, Virginity)
"It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue."
- Voltaire
(Related: Virtue, Mind, Virginity)
"What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy."
- Voltaire
(Related: Age, Virtue, Energy, Loss)
"The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris."
- Larry Wall
(Related: Impatience, Laziness)
"Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Virtue, Vice)
"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
(Related: Truth, Lie, Virtue, Acting, Injustice)
"Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue."
- Izaak Walton
(Related: Virtue, Company)
"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
(Related: Character, Hope, Virtue, Firmness, Man, Titles)
"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."
- George Washington
(Related: Men, Virtue)
"Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races."
- Ethel Waters
(Related: Faults)
"Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Virtue, Punctuality)
"A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue."
- Daniel Webster
(Related: Virtue, Country, Liberty)
"Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue."
- John Webster
(Related: Virtue, Actions, Arguments, Man)
"Virtue looks good but it only suits imposing figures."
- Frank Wedekind
(Related: Virtue)
"Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Genius, Thought, Virtue, Humility, Nothing, Supernatural)
"In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Power, Virtue, Attention, Humility, Nothing, Order)
"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
(Related: Society, Virtue, Consciousness, First, Students, Teaching)
"Virtue has its own reward, but no sale at the box office."
- Mae West
(Related: Virtue, Office, Reward)
"It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster."
- Rebecca West
(Related: Disaster, Vices)
"A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue."
- Edith Wharton
(Related: Virtue, Divorce)
"True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason."
- Alfred North Whitehead
(Related: Courage, Virtue, Force, Heroes, Reason)
"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
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Ambition, Fame, Mankind)
"Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed."
- William Whitehead
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Ambition, Fame, Mankind)
"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Patriotism, Virtue)
"In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue."
- James Q. Wilson
(Related: Virtue, Interest, Public)
"Virtue can only flourish among equals."
- Mary Wollstonecraft
(Related: Virtue)
"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
(Related: Women, Virtue, Freedom, Present, Struggle)
"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
(Related: Being, Exercise, Fact, Reason, Result)
"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
(Related: Life, Virtue, Contracting, Independence, Will)
"The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue."
- Frances Wright
(Related: Virtue)
"We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance."
- Wilhelm Wundt
(Related: Thought, Virtue, Reason)
"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
(Related: Culture, World)
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing."
- William Butler Yeats
(Related: Happiness, Growth, Virtue, Pleasure)
"Virtue alone has majesty in death."
- Edward Young
(Related: Death, Virtue)
"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
(Related: Virtue, Existence, Fact, Support)
"Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues."
- Kong Fu Zi
(Related: Humility)