Virtue Quotes

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.

Bernard of Chartres, 12th Century

There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

Mary Bertone

Virtue they will but abuse, and taunt her with bitter revilling.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations - Book Eleven

What is a weed A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

Ayn Rand

One path alone leads to a life of peace The path of virtue.

Juvenal

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

Sterne

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

Is virtue a thing remote I wish to be virtuous, and lo Virtue is at hand.

Confucius

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

John Dryden, Imitation of Horace

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

William Shakespeare

The love of money is the root of all virtue.

George Bernard Shaw

Virtue does not always demand a heavy sacrifice only the willingness to make it when necessary.

Frederick Sherwood Dunn

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.

Ludwig van Beethoven

God gives to every man virtue, temper, and understanding.

William Coope

If virtue precede us every step will be safe.

Seneca

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

Mark Twain

We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition.

Alex Comfort

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, Of Adversity

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

- - Aristotle

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

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Man cannot be uplifted he must be seduced into virtue.

Don Marquis

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

Evelyn Waugh, Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976)

Self discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Joseph Addison

You must come to terms with your wholeself. the wholeness which exceeds all our virtue and all our vice.

Ursula Le Guin

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwate

Virtue herself is her own fairest reward.

Silius Italicus

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

Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.

John Kenneth Galbraith

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

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

If thou desire to purchase honor with thy wealth, consider first how that wealth became thine; if thy labor got it, let thy wisdom keep it; if oppression found it, let repentance restore it; if thy parent left it, let thy virtues deserve it; so shall thy honor be safer, better and cheaper.

Francis Quarles

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

Confucius, The Confucian Analects

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

John Locke

To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.

Horace, Epistles

Faith is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine.

Ruth Fulton Benedict

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

Aristotle, Rhetoric