Motivational Quotes

Virtue

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

- Hazlitt, William

Best Quotes about Virtue

Virtue is like health: the harmony of the whole man.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

Sallust

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Lippmann, Walter

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

Hare, David

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

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

Howe, Edgar Watson

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

Proverb, Chinese

Of all the benefits which virtue confers on us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

10.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Addison, Joseph

11.

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

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

13.

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

Camus, Albert

14.

If we've learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.

Bush, George

15.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

16.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Dahlberg, Edward

17.

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

Burroughs, William S.

18.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

19.

The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

20.

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

21.

I used to be snow white, but I drifted.

West, Mae

22.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

Nehru, Jawaharlal

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.

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

Butler, Samuel

25.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Milton, John

26.

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

27.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

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

Marquis, Don

29.

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

Rogers, Will

30.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

31.

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

Murdoch, Iris

32.

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

Johnson, Samuel

33.

I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.

Confucius

34.

Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Washington, George

35.

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

Bible

36.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Johnson, Samuel

37.

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

Pope, Alexander

38.

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

Plato

39.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

Schlegel, Friedrich

40.

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

41.

Virtue is a sure anchor.

Motto

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

Swift, Jonathan

46.

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