Selected virtue quotes

1. It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

2. When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

3. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

4. The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

5. If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us. In the long run He never leaves decent folk in the lurch. Often He may test them, He may send trials upon them, but in the long run He always lets His sun shine upon them once more and at the end He gives them His blessing.

6. Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.

7. Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?

8. To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.

9. The good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.

10. It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.

11. The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.

12. All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

13. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

14. It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

15. My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

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

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

18. The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

19. The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

20. Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

21. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

22. What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

23. Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.

24. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

25. Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might, perchance, a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right.

26. Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.

27. We have observed for thirty centuries that a large nose is a sign on the door of our face that says 'Herein dwells a man who is intelligent, prudent, courteous, affable, noble-minded and generous'. A small nose is a cork on the bottle of the opposite vices.

28. A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.

29. The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

30. The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

31. 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.

32. In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.

33. It would seem to me that If this physical life, of which we are now aware, does indeed comprise the entirety of human experience, then what we seem to intuitively know to be true is entirely backwards. For if this is the case, then it must be the despicable tyrant, free of any moral values, and not the selfless compassionate who sacrifices himself for the good of mankind that is truly the one most deserving of our reverence and emulation.

34. Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue.

35. Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

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

37. Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love - a simple duty.

38. People are usually made Dames for virtues I do not possess.

39. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

40. I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government.

41. Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth, and it lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.

42. Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

43. Madam, methinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise, That all both judge you to relate them true, And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.

44. Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

45. I don't know that I believe in the supernatural, but I do believe in miracles, and our time together was filled with the events of magical unlikelihood. I also believe that angels, or something like them, sometimes live among us, hidden within our fellow human beings. I'm convinced that such an angel dwelled in Cynthia. I felt this presence often in Cynthia's lightness of being, in her decency, her tolerance, her incredible love. I never heard Cynthia speak ill of anyone nor did I ever hear anyone speak ill of her. She gave joy and solace to all who met her.

46. There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, 'Where have all the lovers gone?' Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action... Unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.

47. Virtue is not a chemical product, as Taine once described it: it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key. That, I submit, is what has happened in our own lifetime.

48. I think it's a problem that people are considered immoral if they're not religious. That's just not true. This might earn me some enemies, but in some ways they may be even more moral. If you do something for a religious reason, you do it because you'll be rewarded in an afterlife or in this world. That's not quite as good as something you do for purely generous reasons.

49. To master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy. The principle is 'strategy by means of the long sword'. If he attains the virtue of the long sword, one man can beat ten men. Just as one man can beat ten, so a hundred men can beat a thousand, and a thousand men can beat ten thousand. In my strategy, one man is the same as ten thousand, so this strategy is the complete warrior's craft. The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, certain traditions, artistic accomplishments and dancing. But even though these are not part of the Way, if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything. Men must polish their particular Way.

50. Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Know well this spirit, and with forthrightness as the foundation and the true spirit as the Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly. Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void. In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.

51. I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, one tablespoon, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mix willlingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stired it up well, then he spreads it over his span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

52. The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!

53. Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; The subject, not the citizen; for kings And subjects, mutual foes, forever play A losing game into each other's hands, Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame A mechanized automaton.

54. The good want power, but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want: worse need for them. The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom; And all best things are thus confused to ill. Many are strong and rich, and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men As if none felt: they know not what they do.

55. Before man can be free, and equal, and truly wise, he must cast aside the chains of habit and superstition; he must strip sensuality of its pomp, and selfishness of its excuses, and contemplate actions and objects as they really are. He will discover the wisdom of universal love; he will feel the meanness and the injustice of sacrificing the reason and the liberty of his fellow-men to the indulgence of his physical appetites, and becoming a party to their degradation by the consummation of his own. Such, with those differences only incidental to the age and state of society in which they were promulgated, appear to have been the doctrines of Jesus Christ. It is not too much to assert that they have been the doctrines of every just and compassionate mind that ever speculated on the social nature of man.

56. Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

57. My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one.

58. Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behavior; to love her is a liberal education.

59. The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God.

60. In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind.

61. But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

62. To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue). [p.274]

63. Virtue does not come from wealth, but health, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.

64. Sweet is the breath of vernal shower, The bee's collected treasures sweet, Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet The still small voice of gratitude.

65. I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

66. Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves, we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart.

67. As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

68. Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.

69. Pity would be no more If we did not make somebody Poor; And Mercy no more could be If all were as happy as we.

70. A moral, sensible, and well-bred man Will not affront me, and no other can.

71. Did we believe a final Reckoning and Judgment; or did we think enough of what we do believe, we would allow more Love in Religion than we do; since Religion it self is nothing else but Love to God and Man. He that lives in Love lives in God, says the Beloved Disciple: And to be sure a Man can live no where better. It is most reasonable Men should value that Benefit, which is most durable. Now Tongues shall cease, and Prophecy fail, and Faith shall be consummated in Sight, and Hope in Enjoyment; but Love remains. (551-553)

72. Poverty was an ornament on a learned man like a red ribbon on a white horse

73. His vices were the vices of his time and culture, but his virtues transcended the milieu of his life

74. He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good

75. It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another but from God only

76. It's my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues.

77. For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.... Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such... Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos: Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health; but pleasantest is it to win what we love.

78. Teach him how to live, And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.

79. The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds: Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. How willful blind is he then, that would stray, And hath it in his powers, to make his way! This world death's region is, the other life's: And here, it should be one of our first strifes, So to front death, as men might judge us past it. For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

80. Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth, Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth, Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white, Love is like a lovely rose, the world's delight. Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth, But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

81. It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that 'The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.'

82. Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

83. Virtue is like precious odors - most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

84. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

85. I am a poor hater.

86. Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

87. Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.

88. I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

89. Steadfast of thought, Well made, well wrought, Far may be sought, Ere that ye can find So courteous, so kind As merry Margaret, This midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower.

90. It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. (p. 73)

91. 'Your novel has been read,' Woland began, turning to the master, 'and the only thing said about it was that, unfortunately, it is not finished. So, then, I wanted to show you your hero. For about two thousand years he has been sitting on this platform and sleeping, but when the full moon comes, as you see, he is tormented by insomnia. It torments not only him, but also his faithful guardian, the dog. If it is true that cowardice is the most grievous vice, then the dog at least is not guilty of it. Storms were the only thing the brave dog feared. Well, he who loves must share the lot of the one he loves.'

92. To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night; To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change nor falter nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!

93. No evil can happen to a good man, neither in life nor after death.

94. Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul; on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.

95. Be just before you're generous.

96. Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

97. 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.

98. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend.

99. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise. And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

100. Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a luster, he that runs may read.