quotations about virtue
Not beauty, no, but virtue rais'd my fires, whose sacred flame did cherish chaste desires.
SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER
Aurora
The more we use wisdom and virtue, the more they are our own, and the more we have of them.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
If one doth act in friendly wise,
With no evil thought toward any single creature,
And in so doing becometh proper,
And if he have compassion in his soul
Toward all living beings--this noble one
Doth acquire abundant Virtue.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
Virtue, like beauty, is commonly only skin deep.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
No virtuous act can be fully virtuous unless it is freely chosen by the person acting.
JAMES STONER
"The Harmony and Balance of Virtue and Liberty", Learn Liberty, April 24, 2017
Every deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
In the non-internet world where behavior is observable and people are accountable, virtue is easy to spot.
DAVE HUNTOON
"Divided", The Moderate Voice, April 23, 2017
I respect a person that has had to fight and howl for his decency.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
As the flower, when plucked for enjoyment, begins to wither, so does virtue practiced for reward begin to vanish.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin.
CONFUCIUS
The Doctrine of the Mean
There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
There is no road or ready way to virtue.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici
It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster.
REBECCA WEST
The Harsh Voice
There is nothing we abhor so much as to have to be virtuous in private.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
JOHN DRYDEN
Imitation of Horace
Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
To be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations. If thou hast not conquer'd thyself in that which is thy own particular weakness, thou hast no title to virtue, tho' thou art free of other men's.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
When we let our virtue shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
JOE EVERETT
"Creating men of virtue", The Observer, April 20, 2017
The safeguards of virtue are hateful to the evil disposed.
AESOP
"The Thieves and the Cock", Aesop's Fables