quotations about virtue
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Virtue is not always amiable.
JOHN ADAMS
diary, February 9, 1779
Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Great Gatsby
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
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
A man's virtue should not be measured by his occasional exertions, but by his ordinary doings.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
To struggle for virtue, is to be virtuous.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
And as we perceive that virtue assumes a multitude of diverse forms, this variety discovered in intelligent beings convinces us that the most perfect Being is He who unites in Himself the greatest number, or the sum total, of all these perfections.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Virtue!--to be good and just--
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
ALFRED TENNYSON
The Vision of Sin
There is no real felicity for man, but in reforming all his errors and vices, and entering upon a strict and constant course of Virtue.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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
An untempted soul may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous, for virtue is the choice of right when wrong presses itself upon us and demands our choosing.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Most virtues lie between two vices.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon