Motivational Quotes

Virtue

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

- Swift, Jonathan

Best Quotes about Virtue

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm.

Diderot, Denis

It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

Lippmann, Walter

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.

Hazlitt, William

Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Washington, George

Virtue is a sure anchor.

Motto

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

Howe, Edgar Watson

Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of another's pain, can never be enjoyed by a worthy mind. Pleasure's couch is virtues grave.

Duganne, Augustine J.

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.

Vizinczey, Stephen

10.

You are a man, not God; you are human, not an angel. How can you expect to remain always in a constant state of virtue, when this was not possible even for an angel of Heaven, nor for the first man in the Garden?

Kempis, Thomas

11.

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

Bradley, Francis H.

12.

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

Burroughs, William S.

13.

Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person.

Virgil

14.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

Lao-Tzu

15.

Virtue craves a steep and thorny path.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

16.

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

Horace

17.

Temperance and labor are the two best virtues. Labor whets the appetite, temperance curbs it.

18.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

Shaw, George Bernard

19.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

Burke, Edmund

20.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

Thoreau, Henry David

21.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

Schlegel, Friedrich

22.

Virtue survives the grave.

Motto

23.

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.

Hinckley, Gordon B.

24.

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

Pope, Alexander

25.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

26.

Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently, because they live in a vegetative state, or because their purposes are so concentrated in one direction that they have not had the leisure to glance around them.

Duncan, Isadora

27.

A homely face and no figure have aided many women heavenward.

Antrim, Minna

28.

From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

29.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Plato

30.

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

Swift, Jonathan

31.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Milton, John

32.

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

33.

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

34.

There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent.

Baudelaire, Charles

35.

Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.

Rogers, Will

36.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

37.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

Camus, Albert

38.

The glory that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.

Sallust

39.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

40.

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

Proverb, Chinese

41.

All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

Murdoch, Iris

42.

The first time you see Winston Churchill you see all his faults and the rest of your life you spend discovering his virtues.

Lytton, Lady Constance

43.

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

Butler, Samuel

44.

When you can't have anything else, you can have virtue.

Marquis, Don

45.

Thou shalt understand that it is a science most profitable, and passing all other sciences, for to learn to die. For a man to know that he shall die, that is common to all men; as much as there is no man that may ever live or he hath hope or trust thereof; but thou shalt find full few that hath this cunning to learn to die. I shall give thee the mystery of this doctrine; the which shall profit thee greatly to the beginning of ghostly health, and to a stable fundamental of all virtues.

Suso, Heinrich

46.

Why does a virtuous man take delight in the landscapes? Because the din of the dusty world and the locked-in-ness of human habitations are what human nature habitually abhors; while on the contrary, haze, mist, and the haunting spirits of the mountains are what human nature seeks, and yet can rarely find.

His, Kuo

47.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

Johnson, Samuel

48.

For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.

Blackwell, Elizabeth

49.

But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints. [Ephesians 5:3]

Bible

50.

Virtue is the strongest shield.