Virtue Quotes

When virtue has slept it will arise more vigorous.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

They said there was no rest for the wicked. In fact, there was rest neither for the virtuous nor the wicked, nor for guys like Billy, who were uncommitted regarding the whole idea of virtue versus wickedness and who were just trying to do their jobs.

~ Dean Koontz

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love - You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.

~ C.s. Lewis

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

~ Herman Melville

You're perfectly safe. Emily is here to protect your virtue. That's too bad.

~ Kady Cross

Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.

~ Ben Jonson

When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish. I reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.

~ Barbara Pym

We are all each of us riddles, when unknown one to the other. The plain map of human powers and purposes, helps us not at all to thread the labyrinth each individual presents in his involution of feelings, desires and capacities; and we must resemble, in quickness of feeling, instinctive sympathy, and warm benevolence, the lovely daughter of Huntley, before we can hope to judge rightly of the good and virtuous of our fellow-creatures.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mere instruction in morality is not sufficient to nurture the virtues. It might even backfire, especially when the presentation is heavily exhortative and the pupil's will is coerced. Instead a compelling vision of the goodness of goodness itself needs to be presented in a way that is attractive and stirs the imagination.

~ Vigen Guroian

Riches, the dumb god that giv'st all men tongues, / That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things; / The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, / Is made worth heaven!

~ Ben Jonson

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

~ Franz Kafka

Cling to the One who clings to nothing;And so clinging, cease to cling.

~ Thiruvalluvar

Folded hands may conceal a dagger --Likewise a foe's tears.

~ Thiruvalluvar

The vast world rainless, one may bid adieuTo charity and penance.

~ Thiruvalluvar

Conquer with forbearanceThe excesses of insolence.

~ Thiruvalluvar

Virtue alone is happiness; all elseIs else, and without praise.

~ Thiruvalluvar

Remember in any case, that not only the Adept, but anyone with the smallest capacity for Adeptship, is fundamentally an Artist; he will certainly not possess any of those bourgeois virtues which are just so many reactions to Blue Funk.

~ Aleister Crowley

Oskar showed that virtue emerged where it would, and the sort of churchy observance bishops called for was not a guarantee of genuine humanity in a person.

~ Thomas Keneally

Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only what is moral and right, that men should be subject to nothing, not to another man, not to some disturbing passion, not to Fortune. The second trait, when your character has the disposition I outlined just now, is to perform the kind of services that are significant and most beneficial; but they should also be services that are a severe challenge, that are filled with ordeals, and that endanger not only your life but also the many comforts that make life attractive.Of these two traits, all the glory, magnificence, and the advantage, too, let us not forget, are in the second, while the drive and the discipline that make men great are in the former.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

...For like a rugged tree you are hard and sound at the core.

~ H. Rider Haggard

A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues.

~ G.k. Chesterton

What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?

~ George Eliot

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.

~ Abraham Lincoln

I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude, or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as they would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them.

~ Benjamin Franklin

I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.

~ Blaise Pascal

Small, therefore, can we think the progress we have made, as long as our admiration for those who have done noble things is barren, and does not of itself incite us to imitate them.

~ Plutarch

Every vice leads to cruelty. Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy's atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror.

~ C.s. Lewis

For every virtuous man, there are ten thousand worshipers of virtue.

~ Jeffrey Fry

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others.

~ Plutarch

Our genuine happiness comes from doing things we feel good about, not from doing things that make us feel good.

~ John Bruna

The liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction.

~ Seneca

... We [can't] escape the influence of sin in the world, but [do] we have to pay money to see and hear it firsthand?

~ Chris Heimerdinger

Delayed gratification is a major virtue that is missing from our society.

~ Sunday Adelaja

What virtue is it that is born with us?Much less can honor be ascribed thereto,Honor is purchased by the deeds we do.Believe me, Hero, honor is not won,Until some honorable deed be done.----From “Hero and Leander, Sestiad I

~ Christopher Marlowe

In any case, I hadn’t gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue.

~ Alexei Panshin

We often find that People who claim virtue are the ones to lack it the most.

~ Charlyn Khater

On Perseverance – Persistence is admirable. Stubbornness is stupid. Just remember: the latter two even begin with the same three letters.

~ Marsha Hinds

You want the world to be perfect, Nedril—and that's a noble goal. But the world isn't perfect. It's people like me who give the world the chance to try another day for virtue.

~ Jennifer Mckeithen

The Virtue and unpretentiousness of the wise man, which I am talking about, goes unnoticed because of its transparent ordinariness.

~ Alan Jacobs