Virtue Quotes
There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors.... But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity.Claude Adrien Helvetius
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, The Confucian Analects
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
Silver and gold are not the only coin virtue too passes current all over the world.Euripides
Virtue has its own reward, but no box office.Mae West
Rather do what is nothing in the purpose than to be idle, that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot when the fliers escape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and is the self - Made sepulcher of a living man.Francis Quarles
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.Oscar Wilde
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 Elde
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.Jean - Jacques Rousseau
Self - Denial is not a virtue it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.George Bernard Shaw
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, 1653
Is virtue a thing remote I wish to be virtuous, and lo Virtue is at hand.Confucius
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Address on The Method of Nature, 1841
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.Socrates
The most eminent virtue is doing simply what we have to do.Jose Maria Peman, Spanish writer, El Divino Impaciente
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.Cicero
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.Thomas Paine
Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level of themselves.Benjamin Franklin
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, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Unless I accept my faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues.Hugh Prathe
First secure an independent income, then practice virtue.Greek Prove
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.I. F. Stone
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.Samuel Butle
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, The Confucian Analects
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.Confucius, The Confucian Analects
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.Barry Goldwate
Great necessities call out great virtues.Abigail Adams
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.Confucius, The Confucian Analects
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.Henry Kissinge
Consider your origin you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.Dante Alighieri
The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues.Quintilian
We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.Ricthe
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.Ambrose Bierce
All government - - Indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act - - Is founded on compromise and barter.Edmund Burke, Speech on the Conciliation of America
