quotations about virtue
Virtues are to the person what nutrition is to the body.
DONALD DEMARCO
"A Modest Proposal for an Immodest Culture", National Catholic Register, April 22, 2017
While bars and bolts may baffle the thief, virtue alone will defeat the slanderer.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we have made it our duty to exercise them that if we come to engage in an activity of a different kind, it catches us off guard and without the slightest awareness that it might involve the application of those same virtues.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
Overt and apparent virtues, bring forth praise; but there be secret and hidden virtues, that bring forth fortune; certain deliveries of a man's self, which have no name.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Fortune", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Virtue always meets reward,
But quicker when it wears a sword.
BRET HARTE
"The Legends of the Rhine"
Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
JOHN DRYDEN
Imitation of Horace
I respect a person that has had to fight and howl for his decency.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Night of the Iguana
In the non-internet world where behavior is observable and people are accountable, virtue is easy to spot.
DAVE HUNTOON
"Divided", The Moderate Voice, April 23, 2017
It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster.
REBECCA WEST
The Harsh Voice
The more we use wisdom and virtue, the more they are our own, and the more we have of them.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
If one doth act in friendly wise,
With no evil thought toward any single creature,
And in so doing becometh proper,
And if he have compassion in his soul
Toward all living beings--this noble one
Doth acquire abundant Virtue.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
It matters not from what stock we are descended so long as we have virtue; for that alone is true Nobility.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, tho' descended from the Conqueror.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame: The Universal Passion in Seven Characteristical Satires
Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Virtue is the conformity of our affections and actions with the public good, or the voluntary production of the greatest happiness in ourselves and others.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
No virtuous act can be fully virtuous unless it is freely chosen by the person acting.
JAMES STONER
"The Harmony and Balance of Virtue and Liberty", Learn Liberty, April 24, 2017
Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote