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Chance Quotes

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Chance Quotes

“A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t' his other virtues, They're all unseason'd without it.”

Men Way Reason Chance Virtue Danger Ought Salt Selected Valor Valiant

Author:Ben Jonson

“Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.”

Mean Two Given Chance Moral Cases Virtue Example Morality Tasks Vices Circles Excess Defects Moral Virtues

Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

“The Spirit of Justice is the single most important seed Piers planted; if you don't live by its teaching, your chance of salvation is nil. Unless Conscience and the Cardinal Virtues form the food that people live on, just take my word for it, they're utterly lost - every single living soul among them!”

People Ifs Important Soul Wisdom Form Spirit Politics Lost Justice Chance Economy Virtue Teaching Conscience Salvation Seeds Liberalism Live By Cardinals Piers

Author:William Langland

“Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd; Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave, Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. But for one end, one much-neglected use, Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants Are few, and without opulence supplied;) This noble end is, to produce the soul; To show the virtues in their fairest light; To make humanity the minister Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast The generous luxury the gods enjoy.”

“It seems to me that the only thing for a pacifist to do is to find a substitute for war: mountains and seafaring are the only ones I know. But it must be something sufficiently serious not to be a game and sufficiently dangerous to exercise those virtues which otherwise get no chance.”

Knows War Seems Games Peace Chance Virtue Dangerous Serious Exercise Mountain Substitutes Pacifist

Book:The Journey's Echo: Selections

Source: The Journey's Echo: Selections

“The more tickets you have in a lottery, the worse your chance. And it is the same of virtues, in the lottery of life.”

Chance Virtue Tickets Lottery

Book:The Works of Laurence Sterne, A.M. In Eight Volumes ..

Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne, A.M. In Eight Volumes ..

“Virtue, vain word, futile shadow, slave of chance! Alas! I believe in thee!”

Believe I Believe Chance Virtue Shadow Slave I Believe In Thee Vain Alas

Author:Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger

“Some things the legislator must find ready to his hand in a state, others he must provide. And therefore we can only say: May our state be constituted in such a manner as to be blessed with the goods of which fortune disposes (for we acknowledge her power): whereas virtue and goodness in the state are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. A city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the government.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)

“What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.”

Men Certain Chance Courage Virtue Activity Ambition Brave Various Purity Chastity Chaste Assemblage

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld