quotations about virtue
Virtue is our true wealth and the true reward of its possessor; it cannot be lost, it never deserts us until life leaves us.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
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Thoughts on Art and Life
We look around us ... we find that we exist, we find ourselves reasoning upon the mystery which involves our being ... we see virtue and vice, we see the light and darkness, each is separate, distinct; the line which divides them is glaringly perceptible; yet how racking it is to the soul, when enquiring into its own operations, to find that perfect virtue is very far from attainable, to find reason tainted by feeling, to see the mind when analysed exhibit a picture of irreconcilable inconsistencies, even when perhaps a moment before, it imagined that it had grasped the fleeting Phantom of virtue.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to Elizabeth Hitchener, June 20, 1811
He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733
There are two things at which most men are grieved: when their faults are exposed, and when their virtues are concealed.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Virtue is like precious odors -- most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Adversity", Essays
This is the tax a man must pay to his virtues--they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him, which would have passed without observation in another.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Virtue survives the grave.
KALIDASA
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Conduciveness to happiness being then the test of virtue, and all happiness being composed of our own happiness and that of others, the production of our own happiness is prudence, the production of the happiness of others is effective benevolence. The tree of virtue is thus divided into to great stems, out of which grow all the other branches of virtue.
JEREMY BENTHAM
Deontology; or, The Science of Morality
Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
Men sometimes profess attachment to particular virtues, that they may be esteemed free of their opposite vices; and accuse others of what they themselves are guilty, that innocence may be conjectured from desire of justice.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Virtue seems to be nothing more than a motion consonant to the system of things. Were a planet to fly from its orbit, it would represent a vicious man.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
Virtue only is the true beauty.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
A man's virtue should not be measured by his occasional exertions, but by his ordinary doings.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
If virtue holds the secret, don't defer;
Be off with pleasure, and be on with her.
HORACE
Epistles