Virtue Quotes

Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.

Alexander Pope

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.

Andrew Young

However evil men may be they dare not be openly hostile to virtue, and so when they want to attack it they pretend to find it spurious , or impute crimes to it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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.

Francis Bacon

The disgrace of others often keeps tender minds from vice.

Horace

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Horace

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

Horace

...when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen - only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he's in touch with no images), but to true virtue [arete] (because he is in touch with true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.

Plato

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Charles Dickens

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

Aristotle

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.

Aristotle

There is no substitute for virtue. Keep your thoughts virtuous. Rise above the filth that's all around you in this world and stand tall in strength and virtue. You can do this and you will be happier for it for as long as you live. God bless you in cherishing, developing and holding on to this great gift, the quality of personal virtue.

Gordon B. Hinckley

With virtue you can't be entirely poor; without virtue you can't really be rich.

Chinese Proverb

Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it.

Edward W. Howe

These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.

Aristotle

[D]as man die wahre Natur der Sinne nie verstanden hatte und dass sie wild und tierisch geblieben waren, nur weil die Welt versucht hatte, sie durch Aushungern zu bändigen und durch schmerzhaften Verzicht abzutöten, statt danach zu trachten, sie zu Elementen einer neuen Geistigkeit zu verwandeln, deren bezeichnendes Merkmal ein empfindsamer Sinn für die Schönheit sein sollte.

Oscar Wilde

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Thomas Paine

...happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement....

Aristotle

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.

Natalie Clifford Barney