Quotes About Virtue

If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated, or informed, by love.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.

A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.

Let the foundation of thy affection be virtue, then make the building as rich as glorious as thou canst; if the foundation be beauty or wealth, and the building virtue, the foundation is too weak for the building, and it will fall: happy is he, the palace of whose affection is founded upon virtue, walled with riches glazed with beauty, and roofed with honor.

And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.

Virtue is the master of talent, talent is the servant of virtue. Talent without virtue is like a house where there is no master and their servant manages its affairs. How can there be no mischief?

According to great masters, there is no sin and there is no virtue. There is only one thing: that is awareness. If you are aware, you can do anything you want and it is not sin. If you are not aware, you may do so-called virtuous acts, but there is no virtue in them. Out of unconsciousness virtue cannot blossom. It blossoms only when you are full of light, full of love, full of consciousness.

My friend is one who takes me for what I am. A stranger takes me for something else than what I am. . . . What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm. It brings men together in crowds and mobs in bar-rooms and elsewhere, but it does not deserve the name of virtue.

The greatest virtue is not in forgiving those who apologize, or in being kind to those who are kind to you. The biggest virtue is in forgiving even those who never apologize, and in being kind to even those who are not kind to you.

Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it's clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren't very virtuous.

Happiness has this essential difference from what is commonly called pleasure, that virtue forms its basis, and virtue being the offspring of reason, may be expected to produce uniformity of effect.

When virtue was spoken of in the classical sense, for men, it always meant bravery or protecting others or being an adventurer and going out into the world - whereas a woman's virtue meant keeping her legs closed.

Those who make virtue their profession are the ruin of virtue.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Even if we could suppose the citizen body to be virtuous, without each of them being so, yet the latter would be better, for in the virtue of each the virtue of all is involved.

Christianity is not about moving away from vice to virtue. It's moving away from virtue to Christ.

I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.

It is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist.

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

It makes that a virtue which is not a virtue, and that a crime which is not a crime. Religion consists in a round of observances that have no relation whatever to natural goodness, but which rather exclude it by being a substitute for it. Penances and pilgrimages take the place of justice and mercy, benevolence and charity. Such a religion, so far from being a purifier, is the great corrupter of morals.

Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.

the virtue of imagination has this in common with the virtue of courage. Without it, you are less good: with it, you are not necessarily better.

I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.

You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.

It is not wrong to strive to be better than a fellow human being. Nor is it wrong to desire to be better or even to feel like oneself is better than a fellow human being. What is wrong is to gloat in one's own virtue. Therefore, gloating in one's own virtue is not virtuous.

People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt.

Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue.

Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by virtue of the suffering or humiliation that was in it; but whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of the obedience or righteousness there was in it.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

When we think of the height of God's infinity we should not despair of His compassion reaching us from such a height; and when we recall the infinite depth of our fall through sin we should not refuse to believe that the virtue which has been killed in us will rise again. For God can accomplish both these things: He can come down and illumine our intellect with spiritual knowledge, and He can raise up the virtue within us and exalt it with Himself through works of righteousness.

Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels.

friendship is a virtue which comprehends all the rest; none being fit for this, who is not adorned with every other virtue.

As early as 1776, [John Adams] expressed his doubts about America's capacity for virtue. "I have seen all along my Life, Such Selfishness, and Littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, altho We are engaged in the best Cause that ever employed the Human Heart, yet the Prospect of success is doubtfull not for Want of Power or of Wisdom, but of Virtue."

I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. It's a learned affectation.

Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness.

We are now to rank among the nations of the world; but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness.... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.

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.

Whilst weakness and timidity keep us to our duty, virtue has often all the honor.

The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

The virtue lies in the struggle, not the prize.

Is devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not virtue. It was a disguise.

My description of wisdom has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is to do with being wise in one's own virtue, nothing more. My description of being has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is that one should be led by one's innate nature, nothing more.

Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.

No virtue can be real that has not been tried. The gold in the crucible alone is perfect; the loadstone tests the steel, and the diamond is tried by the diamond, while metals gleam the brighter in the furnace.

Virtue is the roughest way, but proves at night a bed of down.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.