114 quotes about Virtue

Great necessities call out great virtues.

Adams, Abigail

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Addison, Joseph

A homely face and no figure have aided many women heavenward.

Antrim, Minna

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Aristotle

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

Aristotle

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

Aristotle

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Bacon, Francis

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.

Barney, Natalie Clifford

There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent.

Baudelaire, Charles

But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints. [Ephesians 5:3]

Bible

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. [Galatians 5:23, 24]

Bible

For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.

Blackwell, Elizabeth

The highest virtue found in the tropics is chastity, and in the colder regions, temperance.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

Bradley, Francis H.

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

Burke, Edmund

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

Burroughs, William S.

If we've learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.

Bush, George

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.

Butler, Samuel

Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

Butler, Samuel

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

Butler, Samuel

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

Camus, Albert

Virtue is like health: the harmony of the whole man.

Carlyle, Thomas

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

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

Churchill, Winston

Virtue is its own reward.

Cicero, Marcus T.

We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition.

Comfort, Alexander

To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.

Confucius

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

Confucius

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

Confucius

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Dahlberg, Edward

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.

Diderot, Denis

Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of another's pain, can never be enjoyed by a worthy mind. Pleasure's couch is virtues grave.

Duganne, Augustine J.

Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.

Duncan, Isadora

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Weed -- a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The virtue in most request is conformity.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter.

Franklin, Benjamin

Be generous, good and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.

Franklin, Billy Boy

Virtue is the only true nobility.

Fuller, Thomas

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

Hare, David

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.

Hazlitt, William

There is no substitute for virtue. Keep your thoughts virtuous. Rise above the filth that's all around you in this world and stand tall in strength and virtue. You can do this and you will be happier for it for as long as you live. God bless you in cherishing, developing and holding on to this great gift, the quality of personal virtue.

Hinckley, Gordon B.

Why does a virtuous man take delight in the landscapes? Because the din of the dusty world and the locked-in-ness of human habitations are what human nature habitually abhors; while on the contrary, haze, mist, and the haunting spirits of the mountains are what human nature seeks, and yet can rarely find.

His, Kuo

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

Horace

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

Howe, Edgar Watson

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Johnson, Samuel

Virtue is too often merely local.

Johnson, Samuel

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

Johnson, Samuel

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.

Jordan, David Starr

I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.

Jung, Carl

You are a man, not God; you are human, not an angel. How can you expect to remain always in a constant state of virtue, when this was not possible even for an angel of Heaven, nor for the first man in the Garden?

Kempis, Thomas

The time is always right to do what is right.

King Jr. Martin Luther

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

Lao-Tzu

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

Lippmann, Walter

The first time you see Winston Churchill you see all his faults and the rest of your life you spend discovering his virtues.

Lytton, Lady Constance

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

When you can't have anything else, you can have virtue.

Marquis, Don

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Milton, John

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

Milton, John

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Virtue craves a steep and thorny path.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Of all the benefits which virtue confers on us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Virtue is the strongest shield.

Motto

Virtue is a sure anchor.

Motto

Virtue alone is invincible.

Motto

Virtue survives the grave.

Motto

All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

Murdoch, Iris

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

Nehru, Jawaharlal

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.

Newman, Cardinal J.

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.

Nicolson, Laurence Hope

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

Penn, William

If we had to seek virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is within us, it suffices to avoid bad thoughts and to keep our souls turned toward the Lord.

Philokalia

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Plato

Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.

Pope, Alexander

With virtue you can't be entirely poor; without virtue you can't really be rich.

Proverb, Chinese

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth.

Proverb, English

Virtue is harmony.

Pythagoras

Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.

Rogers, Will

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

Ah, Eugénie, have done with virtues! Among the sacrifices that can be made to those counterfeit divinities, is there one worth an instant of the pleasures one tastes in outraging them?

Sade, Marquis De

The glory that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.

Sallust

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

Schlegel, Friedrich

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

Shakespeare, William

Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water.

Shakespeare, William

Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world.

Shaw, George Bernard

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

Shaw, George Bernard

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

Shaw, George Bernard

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

Smith, Adam

Thou shalt understand that it is a science most profitable, and passing all other sciences, for to learn to die. For a man to know that he shall die, that is common to all men; as much as there is no man that may ever live or he hath hope or trust thereof; but thou shalt find full few that hath this cunning to learn to die. I shall give thee the mystery of this doctrine; the which shall profit thee greatly to the beginning of ghostly health, and to a stable fundamental of all virtues.

Suso, Heinrich

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

Swift, Jonathan

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

Thoreau, Henry David

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

Thoreau, Henry David

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Twain, Mark

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

Twain, Mark

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

Unknown, Source

Temperance and labor are the two best virtues. Labor whets the appetite, temperance curbs it.

Unknown, Source

Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.

Vanbrugh, Sir John

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

Virgil

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.

Vizinczey, Stephen

Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Washington, George

Virtue has its own reward, but no sales at the box office.

West, Mae

I used to be snow white, but I drifted.

West, Mae

It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.

Young, Andrew