Motivational Quotes

Virtue

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

- Butler, Samuel

Best Quotes about Virtue

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

Lao-Tzu

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

Plato

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

Hare, David

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

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

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Burroughs, William S.

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

Addison, Joseph

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

Lippmann, Walter

10.

Virtue has its own reward, but no sales at the box office.

West, Mae

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.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

13.

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

Murdoch, Iris

14.

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

Hazlitt, William

15.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

16.

Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Washington, George

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.

Jung, Carl

19.

Virtue is reason which has become energy.

Schlegel, Friedrich

20.

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

21.

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

22.

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

23.

Ah, Eug?nie, have done with virtues! Among the sacrifices that can be made to those counterfeit divinities, is there one worth an instant of the pleasures one tastes in outraging them?

Sade, Marquis De

24.

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

Virgil

25.

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

26.

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

Camus, Albert

27.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Milton, John

28.

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

Howe, Edgar Watson

29.

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

Horace

30.

Virtue by premeditation isn't worth much.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

34.

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

Butler, Samuel

35.

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

Sallust

36.

If we had to seek virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is within us, it suffices to avoid bad thoughts and to keep our souls turned toward the Lord.

Philokalia

37.

Virtue is harmony.

Pythagoras

38.

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

Burke, Edmund

39.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Smith, Adam

40.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.

Jordan, David Starr

41.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

42.

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

Marquis, Don

43.

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

44.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. [Galatians 5:23, 24]

Bible

45.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth.

Proverb, English

46.

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

47.

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