Quotation Explorer - 'Virtue'

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration. - Confucius
There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue. - Cicero
Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue. - John Dryden
Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both. - Joseph Wood Krutch
FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. - Ambrose Bierce
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a great distance, not by virtue of any sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.
The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys:Power, like a desolating pestilence,Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience,Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,A mechanised automaton. - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Virtue is insufficient temptation. - George Bernard Shaw
...a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense. - John Adams
The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive. - Adam Gopnik
It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge. - Voltaire
The dominating idea of English society was not cultivate virtue but to avoid scandal. - Edward Short
It was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young king that he was sorry for his father's death;but, as common subjects have that virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more about it. - Charles Dickens
Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. - John Kenneth Galbraith
What then have I done? What, except yield to a natural feeling, inspired by beauty, sanctioned by virtue and kept at all times within the bounds of respect. It's innocent expression prompted not by hope but by trust.
An ambassador is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country; a news-writer is a man without virtue who lies at home for himself.
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. - Maya Angelou
For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from the force of character. - Baruch Spinoza
Integrity is a virtue which defines the depth of life. - Debasish Mridha
All that evil requires is an absence of virtue, where somebody didn't make a stand. - Terry Darlington
In a cruel world kindness is certainly an unsafe virtue - Munia Khan
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. - Evelyn Waugh
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
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together. - Petrarch
How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue. - Jane Austen
Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. - Joseph Smith Jr.
At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion. - Robert Louis Stevenson
Patience is a virtue Savannah, to tolerate delay. It implies self control and forbearance, as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. Something to think about. . . (Character), "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Catherine Weaver
It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't. - Clive Thompson
Self discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another. - Joseph Addison
True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue. - Martin Luther
These men were born to drill and die. Point for them the virtue of the slaughter, Make plain to them the excellence of killing And a field where a thousand corpses lie. - Stephen Crane
It is not solely or chiefly in virtue of the divine image that man effectively resembles God, but in virtue of his consciousness of being an image and the movement whereby the soul, passing in a way through itself, avails itself of the factual resemblance in order to attain to God. - Étienne Gilson
All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. - John Adams
The secret code of success is patience,a virtue that can not be replaced. It takes time to build great dreams. - Bernard Kelvin Clive
In choosing a hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid. I clearly would have been burned at the stake in another age. - Thomas Gold
To be proud of virtue is to poison oneself with the antidote. - Benjamin Franklin
A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides. - Ayn Rand
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? - Seneca
For the most part, people strenuously resist any redefinition of morality, because it shakes them to the very core of their being to think that in pursuing virtue they may have been feeding vice, or in fighting vice they may have in fact been fighting virtue. - Stefan Molyneux
Patience is a virtue not a vice. - Jaachynma N.E. Agu
There is no gem like virtue, no wealth like happiness, no treasure like faith, and no jewel like love. - Matshona Dhliwayo
Virtue is indeed its own reward. - Claudianus
Love without truth and honor is licentious in nature. Love without commitment is promiscuous and fleeting. Love without virtue and understanding is savage and selfish. Love without respect is short-lived. Love without these conditions is without God. - David W. Stevens
Encouraging virtue is better than suppressing vice. - Raheel Farooq
Ignorance is a place where innocence is not always a virtue. - Chriscinthia Blount
There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither. - Alan Cohen
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. - Izaak Walton
Phronesis is a beautiful virtue, practise it and you shall reap the rewards… - Shana Pascoa
One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man. - Charles M. Blow
Truth is the highest knowledge.Faith is the highest courage.Reason is the highest wisdom.Love is the highest virtue. - Matshona Dhliwayo
Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge. - Dante Alighieri
When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Beauty is the virtue of the body as virtue is the beauty of the soul - Ralph Waldo Emerson
A true woman of virtue is one who will socialize with every man on earth, and doesn't share her body with any of them. - Michael Bassey Johnson
What is virtue but the trades unionism of the married. - George Bernard Shaw
It's important that someone celebrate our existence... People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture. - Lois McMaster Bujold
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts. - Baruch Spinoza
Desire is a great virtue, but expectation is an even greater vice. - Raheel Farooq
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country! - Joseph Addison
Love can cause problem and love can heal humanly problems based on our virtue. - Santosh Kalwar
Bees will not work except in darkness;Thought will not work except in Silence;neither will Virtue Work except in secrecy. - Maurice Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble – Silence
O philosophy, life's guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life. - Marcus Tullius Cicero
Man kills, the things he love the most, sometimes by the virtue of hatred, crime, anger and war and sometimes by dramatizing his activities. But he is not aware that his killings are his own self-image. - Santosh Kalwar
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. - Cicero
To produce things and to rear them,To produce, but not to take possession of them,To act, but not to rely on one's own ability,To lead them, but not to master them -This is called profound and secret virtue. - Lao-tzu
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary. - Thomas Paine
Men are not great by the virtue of their wealth, but by the wealth of their virtue. - Sunday Adelaja
We have come here together so that you might know, through virtue of your own pain, your own hopelessness, your own fear, your own darkness and the lie of powerlessness, the very actual power of your own will, of the will of your soul. - Jennifer DeLucy
The fundamental virtue of success is that it allows you to know the true significance of what it means to have the freedom to make your dreams come true. - Stacy Keach
A man who can own pearls does not bother about shells, and those who aspire to virtue do not trouble themselves over honors. - Francis de Sales
Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue. - Confucius
Innocence more often than not is a piece of good fortune rather than a virtue. - Anatole France
Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice. - Lyman Abbott
Just read The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. Oh my, what currents run deep! Beautifully seen, beautifully told. Praise praise praise . . . Pardon my French, but you are one darn major American writer!"---, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, on Sandcastle and Other Stories - Richard Bach
In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard of monstrous lust the due and just reward; In Pericles, his queen, and daughter, seen, Although assailed with fortune fierce and keen, Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast, Led on by heaven, and crowned with joy at last. - William Shakespeare
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail. - Francis Quarles
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. - Voltaire
I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it. - Confucius
Aristotle deemed courage to be the first virtue, because it makes all the other possible. - Jonathan V. Last
Patience is a virtue I don't have. - Bushra Khanum
...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake. - B.F. Skinner
Nowadays people have forgotten about morality and virtue, but they know how to resolve arguments. Look, what’s happening. We lead wars with measurements, dafters and calculations. We do not speak to inspire, we endeavour to create massacre and engulf as many people as we can. Where did we miss? - Alexander Zalan
Patience is a virtue as they say and listening is an exercise in patience. - Kaleb Kilton
Mankind is immortalin the comic perspective not by virtue of man's subjugation of naturebut by virtue of man's subjection to it. The "fall" in tragedy ends indeath; the fall in comedy ends in bed, where, by natures's arithmetic,one and one make a brand new one. - Rose A. Zimbardo
All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter. - Edmund Burke
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life. - Joseph Addison
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.
Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. - Buddha
Learning to fail is a virtue. Failing to learn is a sin. - Paul Sloane
Courage becomes a worthwhile and meaningful virtue when it is regarded not so much as a willingness to die manfully but as a determination to live decently. - Thomas S. Monson
Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality. - Walter Kaufmann
wonderful people are made, not born that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue, built slowly from specific moral and spiritual accomplishments. - David Brooks
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. - Voltaire
Virtue is its own punishment. - Aneurin Bevan
When we teach people that suspending moral judgments is a virtue, the necessary outcome is moral horror. - Peter Boghossian
Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence. - Frank Zappa
God gives to every man virtue, temper, and understanding. - William Cooper
A most loving virtue of all, is that of a cheerful giver with the right attitude of LOVE! Giving is not just a random act of kindness. It is an investment in humanity. In return you become more than yourself, you transcend - Angie karan
One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk. - Charles Baudelaire
Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly. - Aristotle
I don't believe in sin. My relationships that failed have failed because I somehow attract devout christians. I don't believe in virtue either. I think people just do shit and it's life. - Darnell Lamont Walker
You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue. - William Blake
Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand. - Confucius
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization. - Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment. - Tim Kreider
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble. - Ambrose Bierce
With Truth, Reason, and Morality off the board, we then capture their last Rook —that prissy little virtue, Temperance— for she depends on those other three for her beauty and was thus left wholly undefended. - Geoffrey Wood
Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. - Sir Francis Bacon
In the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence. - Adam Smith
Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself. - Diogenes of Sinope
Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. - John Locke
Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. - George Washington
What men call good fellowship is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm. - Henry David Thoreau
Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is only one certain test of the virtue and that is humiliation. The acceptance of humiliation alone shows the depth and reality of our humility. - Nivard Kinsella
To be scientifically illiterate is to remain essentially uncultured. And the chief virtue of a cultural activity--be it art, music, literature, or science--is the way it enriches our lives. - Lawrence M. Krauss
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. - John Dryden
Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex. - Jane Austen
Set your mind on beauty, love, and virtue. You will be blessed, great, pure, and true. - Debasish Mridha
When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist. - Akhenaton
If I have a theological virtue, it is curiosity or inquisitiveness. - Jurgen Moltmann
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it. - Confucius
Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.
Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice...
Virtue extends our days: he live two lives who relives his past with pleasure. - Marcus Valerius Martialis
Virtue should always be colmingled with humor. - Patrick O'Brian
Forgiveness is a virtue of beauty. You learn to see a person no longer defined by a past but one that has re-created itself anew. - Jason Micheal Ratliff
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. - George Washington
Beneath beautiful appearances I search out ugly depths, and beneath ignoble surfaces I probe for the hidden mines of devotion and virtue. It's a relatively benign mania, which enables you to see something new in a place where you would not have expected to find it. - Gustave Flaubert
We were meant to survive because of our minds' ability to reason, our ability to live with frustration in order to maintain our virtue. We wore smiling masks while dying inside. - Anchee Min
While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years. - Abraham Lincoln
Obedience is the virtue that determines whether a person is either a servant or a rebel. Life of integrity is built on obedience of God's statutes and nothing else. - Israelmore Ayivor
Selfishness is not a virtue. Altruism is not a moral weakness. Taxation is the price we pay for civilization. - Darryl Cunningham
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them. - Saint Thomas Aquinas
There isn't any virtue where there has never been any temptation. - Margaret Deland
Many pride themselves, staking claim to the noble virtue that is loyalty. However, many resolve to give their allegiance to nothing. How can one demand loyalty, if one stands by nothing, nor commits to the realization of an ideal? - Justin K. McFarlane Beau
There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue. - John Adams
Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue. - Thomas Jefferson
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. - William Shakespeare
Virtue springs from love.Love springs from God. - Matshona Dhliwayo
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right. - Cato the Elder
Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue. - John Herschel
Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim Wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, Obtained with labor, for mankind employed, And then, when most you share it, best enjoyed. - Alfred North Whitehead
The love of money is the root of all virtue. - George Bernard Shaw
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. - Confucius
Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter. - William Shakespeare
Only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith; Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise; but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far. - John Milton
Helping yourself is common sense, helping others is virtue, helping yourself and others is enlightenment. - Matshona Dhliwayo
You can fuck anyone but when it comes to making love your virtue will be questioned. - Ankur singh yadav
Virtue can only flourish among equals. - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold. - Ludwig van Beethoven
Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love. - Ann Radcliffe
In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane. - Yukichi Fukuzawa
I was so tired of this ceaseless, day-to-day tug-of-war between my hormones and my head, my vanity and my virtue. I felt very much as though I were caught in the middle of some dreadful battle in which taking a side of my own would mean certain misery in either case. - Emily Tomko
I would be dreadfully remiss not to think that God would painstakingly craft something an intimately ingenious and inexplicably intricate as my life, and that by virtue of such sheer brilliance I should not examine it with the greatest precision and unleash it with the fullest abandon. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. - Oscar Wilde
Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Virtue on earth is persecuted ever; the envious die, but envy never. - Moliere
As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue. - W. Somerset Maugham
Virtue creates reputation, but action brings success. - Debasish Mridha
The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation--abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a "virtue" that corrodes self-esteem. - Nathaniel Branden
The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side. - Theodore Roosevelt
Virtue has never been as respectable as money. - Mark Twain
Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly. - William Shakespeare
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much. - Peter Ustinov
Intellect is the virtue of ignoring one’s emotions’ attempt to contaminate one’s opinions. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
New capabilities emerge just by virtue of having smart people with access to state-of-the-art technology. - Robert Kahn
I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them. - Boris Pasternak
Novelty is not necessarily a virtue. - Rita Mae Brown
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. - Barry Goldwater
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. - Samuel Adams
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made. - Oscar Wilde
Try to keep your soul always in peace and quiet, always ready for whatever our lord may wish to work in you. it is certainly a higher virtue of the soul, and a greater grace, to be able to enjoy the Lord in different times and different places than in only one. - Ignatius of Loyola
May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole Earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the whole world in one common undistinguished ruin! - Joseph Warren
Fear of nature led to society; hatred among men lead to culture; envy among women led to virtue. - Thiruman Archunan
Strength we think to be a virtue in government, but we do not find our defense against disintegration either in arbitrary or in very great power. Indeed, we are inclined to see in both these the symptoms of an already advanced decay - Michael Oakeshott
Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road. - John Henry Jowett
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative. - Henry Kissinger
Women's virtue is man's greatest invention.
UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. - Ambrose Bierce
A large part of virtue consists in good habits. - William Paley
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. - Baruch Spinoza
To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue. - William Shakespeare
Propounding peace and love without practical or institutional engagement is delusion, not virtue. - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. - Epictetus
A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.
When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. - Confucius
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. - William Shakespeare
Learning is intelligence.Knowing is understanding.Practicing is wisdom.Teaching is virtue. - Matshona Dhliwayo
Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature. - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Generations of parents have upheld this line if thinking. When a daughter showed a promise of talent, they saw it as a curse and worried that she would die young. Eventually, the very lack of talent became a sure sign of virtue for women. - He Zhen
In a sense, beauty is what one chooses to feel by virtue of what one chooses to imitate and to create. - Robert Pack
There is a kind of virtue that lies not in extraordinary actions, not in saving poor orphans from burning buildings, but in steadfastly working for a world where orphans are not poor and buildings comply with decent fire codes. - Randy Cohen
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. - Lord Macaulay
Yielding flexibility is a virtue of an ever-expanding heart. - Molly Friedenfeld
Love is to give, commit, and trust completely; the courage to be vulnerable without the omniscience of another's virtue. - Ken Poirot
Virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage. - Demosthenes
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. - Cicero
Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. "It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.
All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. - John Adams
PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. - Ambrose Bierce
Silence is the virtue of fools. - Sir Francis Bacon
There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts. - William Shakespeare
You have to choose the best, every day, without compromise...guided by your own virtue and highest ambition - Philippa Gregory
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience. - Adam Smith
In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man. - Marquis de Sade
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! - Barry M. Goldwater
Your everyday actions will define you and your virtue. - Debasish Mridha
Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith. - John Piper
Shall ignorance of good and ill Dare to direct the eternal will? Seek virtue, and of that possest, To Providence resign the rest.
The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete. - Confucius
One path alone leads to a life of peace: The path of virtue. - Juvenal
Virtue is choked with foul ambition. - William Shakespeare
Akin to the idea that time is money is the concept, less spoken but as commonly assumed, that we may be adequately represented by money. The giving of money has thus become our characteristic virtue. But to give is not to do. The money is given in lieu of action, thought, care, time. - Wendell Berry
Justice is the cardinal virtue of peace. - Kristian Goldmund Aumann
If there has been one overriding change in poetic practice, it is that under the influence of free verse the poets have made a primary virtue out of exactitude and economy of meaning: this has replaced metrical skill as the first thing the poet tunes to. - Martin Langford
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity. - James Lee Burke
When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody. - Ayn Rand
Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall. - Edward Young
If by saying that all men are born free and equal, you mean that they are all equally born; it is true, but true in no other sense; birth, talent, labor, virtue, and providence, are forever making differences.
"Knowledge, without common sense," says Lee, is "folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death." But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with clarity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace.
There are very few women in society whose virtue outlasts their beauty. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. - Sir Winston Churchill
The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and quality and of peaceful liberty. - Marquis De Lafayette
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. - William Shakespeare
The definition of Brevity: That which people believe would be a virtue - in me! - Greg Curtis
Just as good and virtue, sin and evil can only be given in vigil. Who sleeps, sleeps; for the asleep there is no sin, just as there is no good, nor virtue. There is only sleep. - Judas Iscariot The Flight of the Feathered Serpent
Justice is the virtue we 'd rather have done unto others than practiced on ourselves. - Jonathan V. Last
First secure an independent income, then practice virtue. - Greek Proverb
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. - Thomas Paine
One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist. - Diogenes Laertius
Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom. - Horace
Make a virtue of necessity. - Geoffrey Chaucer
The principle virtue of anyone who made an important invention is curious persistence. - Debasish Mridha
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
By the external appearance of your knowledge, you have attained (high) ranks and reverence with the people! So seek with Allah higher ranks and closeness by virtue of your hidden good deeds. And know that these two ranks, one cancels out the other. - Wuhayb ibn al-Wird
America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded. - Fulton J. Sheen
Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs. - Maximilien Robespierre
A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact. - Aldo Leopold
Who upholds the gorsedd if not You? Who counts the ages of the world if not You? Who commands the Wheel of Heaven if not You? Who quickens life in the womb if not You? Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power, sain us and shield us with Your Swift Sure Hand. - Stephen R. Lawhead
Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women. - Gordon B. Hinckley
A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue. - Daniel Webster
It drives on with a courage which is stronger than the storm. It drives on with a mercy which does not quail in the presence of death. It drives on as proof, a symbol, a testimony that man is created in the image of God and that valour and virtue have not perished in the British race.
Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me also remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. - Barry Goldwater
Virtue + Intelligence = Wisdom - Matshona Dhliwayo
Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine. - Albert Camus
It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery. - Ludwig van Beethoven
The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; - Albert Camus
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. - Thomas Paine
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. - Plutarch
The most eminent virtue is doing simply what we have to do.
It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. - C. S. Lewis
Ambition, the soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, than gain which darkens him. - William Shakespeare
Patience is a conquering virtue. - Geoffrey Chaucer
Reaping from an opportunity is intelligence;reaping from adversity is wisdom.Overcoming hardship is strength;overcoming yourself is virtue. - Matshona Dhliwayo
Virtue they will but abuse, and taunt her with bitter revilling.
For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think on these things. - Anonymous
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue. - Samuel Butler
Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. - P. J. O'Rourke
He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue. - Benjamin Franklin
One only knows the sins of democracy against virtue when one is worthy enough to suffer from them. - Raheel Farooq
Marry for money, and you will live lavishly. Marry for virtue, and you will live honorably. Marry for fame, and you will live prominently. Marry for love, and you will live happily. - Matshona Dhliwayo
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. - Confucius
There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent and virtue. - Tom Robbins
Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention. - Cornelia Otis Skinner
Blushing is the color of virtue. - Diogenes of Sinope
We are ready to despair too soon, we are ready to say, ‘What’s the good of doing anything?’ Hope is the virtue we should cultivate most in this present day and age. - Agatha Christie
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. - Maya Angelou
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. - Voltaire
Virtue has its own reward, but no box office. - Mae West
If virtue precede us every step will be safe. - Seneca
In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue. - Cornelius Tacitus
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition. - Baruch Spinoza
The soul that acquires the virtue of forgiveness won't find any more trouble. No matter what happens, he will know how to run his life ... - Chico Xavier
Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it. - Barack Obama
If a novel's salient aim is virtue, I want to throw it against the wall. - Cynthia Ozick
Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you've got an audience! - Diogenes Laërtius
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition.
Jenny replied to this with a bitterness which might have surprized a judicious person, who had observed the tranquillity with which she bore all the affronts to her chastity; but her patience was perhaps tired out, for this is a virtue which is very apt to be fatigued by exercise. - Henry Fielding
Blood is inherited and virtue is acquired. - Venezuelan Proverb
You must come to terms with your wholeself. the wholeness which exceeds all our virtue and all our vice.
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. - C. S. Lewis
Virtue isn't 'better' than vice. It's just different. - Bill Watterson
It is only in virtue that you can discover, that you can live - not in the cultivation of a virtue, which merely brings about respectability, not understanding and freedom. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.
A good inclination is but the first rude draught of virtue, but the finishing strokes are from the will, which, if well disposed, will by degrees perfect it, as if all disposed will quickly deface it.
The offspring of virtue is perseverance. The fruit and offspring of perseverance is habit and child of habit is character. - John Climacus
How few human beings, the major thought with a sigh, can exert by hard work, thrift, intelligence or any other virtue the slightest influence on their own destiny. - FARRELL J.G.
Greed is the seed of corruptionas much as virtue is the seed of justice.Wisdom is the seed of successas much as vice is the seed of destruction. - Matshona Dhliwayo
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. - George Washington
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. - Confucius
Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan
To live in a world where men do not love, where they cheat and are callous, is to sink into a preoccupation with death, and to see the futility of anything except virtue. - John Howard Griffin
Knowledge in the head and virtue in the heart, time devoted to study or business, instead of show and pleasure, are the way to be useful and consequently happy. - John Adams
I do not know whether music knows how to despair over music, or marble over marble, but literature is an art which knows how to prophesize the time in which it might have fallen silent, how to attack its own virtue, and how to fall in love with its own dissolution and court its own end. - Jorge Luis Borges
It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in ways that one cannot know. - Nelson Mandela
Ignorance and virtue suck on the same straw... - Gabriel Thy
Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman. - Ninon de l'Enclos
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; Skill is knowing how to do it, and Virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan
Humility is a virtue that one can find, in which God in heaven rejoices ,and in His love he enfolds you, close to his heart He does bind. - Henrietta Newton Martin
Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. - Maya Angelou
Lenin only believes in the revolution and in the virtue of expediency.'One must be prepared for every sacrifice, to use, if necessary, every stratagem, ruse, illegal method, to be determined to conceal the truth, for the sole purpose of accomplishing, despite everything, the communist task'. - Albert Camus
Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again. - Anaïs Nin
No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift. - Seneca
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. - Sir Francis Bacon
Hollywood shines by virtue of light within. - A.D. Posey
To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; not to realize that you do not understand is a defect. - Lao Tzu
In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even beauty is only a vein sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of ones clothes in a community of blind men. - Joseph Conrad
I'm made mute by the virtue of decisionAnd I choose most of your life goes on without meOh the fear I've knownThat I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my ownAll I've sown was a songBut maybe I was wrong - Emily Saliers
Click any word or name in a quote to explore, or search for more. [JSON] [SOURCE]