Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes on Virtue
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The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
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Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
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I am now speaking of the phenomena of nature. I believe, as much as I believe that I live, that the reason a thing is right is because it tends to the happiness of mankind. I believe, as much as I believe that I live, that on the average the good man is not only the happier man, but that no man is happy who is not good.
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It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection.
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Kindness is the sunshine in which the virtues grow.
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Love is a revelation, a creation. From love the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice, self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Lover, wife, mother, husband, father, child, home - these words shed light - they are the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble falls from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of air, and virtue ceases to exist.
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Prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth and progress.
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The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct - all were produced by human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love is a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies.
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Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance - to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.