quotations about virtue
A virtuous woman has in her heart one fibre less or one fibre more than other women; she is either stupid or sublime.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
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Physiology of Marriage
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
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 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
Thoughts on Art and Life
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
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
Virtue is like precious odors -- most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Adversity", Essays
Virtue only is the true beauty.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
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
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
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 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
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
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
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 has a secret dignity, even with those that ridicule it.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Most virtues lie between two vices.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon