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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

Virtue Quotes

“The characters you refer to as predatory and unsavory are useful. They're the ones who make a novel into a thriller. They're active, and most of the common virtues, the signs of a good person, are not.”

Writing Persons Character Common Novel Virtue Active Good Person Thrillers Predatory

Author:Thomas Perry

“Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.”

May Common Virtue Failing Corruption Radical Suspicious Credulity

Book:The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler

Source: The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler

“The mind of man has no defense To equal plain, old common sense. This homely virtue don't despise, If you would be happy as well as wise.”

Ifs Men Mind Wells Would Be Common Virtue Wise Equal Defense Common Sense Despise Homely

Author:Don Herold

“Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.”

May Stills Common Attention Virtue Draws Stones Remains Diamond Defects Gems Pebbles Sanctify

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, .. The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth. It is time for the president and the Congress to follow that common sense for the good of the country.”

People Important Country Character Fall President Ability Common Virtue Fine Judgment Approach Argument Congress Common Sense Complexity Distinction Decency American Character

Author:Dick Gephardt

“Debased men, but they all had something in common: They showed a keen regard for virtue, and tried to dress themselves in that costume. Hypocrisy, for all its bad reputation, at least showed a decent respect for goodness.”

Men Common Virtue Goodness Regard Dresses Reputation Decent Hypocrisy Costumes Bad Reputation

Book:Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker

Source: Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker

“Either... the moving intelligences of the planets are weakest in those that are farthest from the sun, or... there is one moving intelligence in the sun, the common center, forcing them all round, but those most violently which are nearest, and that it languishes in some sort and grows weaker at the most distant, because of the remoteness and the attenuation of the virtue.”

Moving Grows Common Sun Virtue Planets Rounds Languish Remoteness

Author:Johannes Kepler

“We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.”

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Mead's anthropology had many other red, white and blue- blooded virtues. One was the common anthropological conceit, out of which she made a career, to the effect that the ultimate value of studying other cultures was the use we could make of them to reconstruct our own - a heady kind of intellectual imperialism, as if the final meaning of others' lives was their significance for us.”

“For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium from the elite than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them.”

People Men Politics Justice Common Economy Virtue Wise Authority Credit Admire Liberalism Acquire Honour Elites Valiant

Author:Plutarch

“To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods. They need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of the species.”

Men Needs Looks Interest Common Principles Virtue Atheism Objects Morality Members Advantage Species Vices Obvious Theology Common Sense Revelations Injury

Author:Jean Meslier

“A great estate is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see wealthy persons live scandalously and miserably; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not an estate, that makes a man good for something.”

Knows Men Persons Use Order Common Principles Know How Virtue Riches Wealthy Estates Disadvantages Virtue And Happiness

Author:Marcus Aurelius

“Charity and good-nature give a sanction to the most common actions; and pride and ill-nature make our best virtues despicable.”

Giving Action Common Virtue Pride Charity Ill Sanctions Despicable Good Nature

Book:The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt. A New Edition

Source: The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt. A New Edition

“There do remain dispersed in the soil of human nature divers seeds of goodness, of benignity, of ingenuity, which, being cherished, excited, and quickened by good culture, do, by common experience, thrust out flowers very lovely, and yield fruits very pleasant of virtue and goodness.”

Humans Culture Common Virtue Human Nature Flower Goodness Fruit Excited Seeds Lovely Pleasant Soil Yield Thrust Benevolence Ingenuity Common Experience

Book:The Sermons and Expository Treatises of Isaac Barrow: With a Life of the Author

Source: The Sermons and Expository Treatises of Isaac Barrow: With a Life of the Author

“Common sense is a vastly overrated virtue. I myself prefer the spark of genius.”

Common Virtue Genius Common Sense Sparks Overrated

Author:Margaret Millar

“Virtue, without the graces, is like a rich diamond unpolished--it hardly looks better than a common pebble; but when the hand of the master rubs off the roughness, and forms the sides into a thousand brilliant surfaces, it is then that we acknowledge its worth, admire its beauty, and long to wear it in our bosoms.”

Looks Long Hands Form Sides Common Virtue Rich Grace Masters Thousand Surface Brilliant Admire Acknowledge Diamond Bosoms Pebbles Roughness

Book:Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks

Source: Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks

“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.”

Imagination Common Virtue

Author:Pamela Frankau

“Perhaps we have more in common by virtue of our common humanity than we have differences by virtue of our religions.”

Humanity Differences Common Virtue Common Humanity

Author:Mark Heard

“Common sense is so just an understanding that it rises almost to a virtue; in truth, it involves virtues and their participation in judgment. For sound sense implies all powers uniting; none too prominent, so as to tyrannize; none too small, so as to be overborne.”

Understanding Sound Common Virtue Judgment Common Sense Participation Prominent Uniting

Author:James Vila Blake

“One citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.”

Community Common Virtue Citizens Members Constitution Salvation Relative

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“Now what is just and right is to be interpreted in the sense of 'what is equal'; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.”

Different States Government Able Form Law Justice Views Common Virtue Share Willing Citizens Equal Advantage Governing Forms Of Government Common Good Being Equal

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“I think the notion...that liquidity is this - of tradable common stock - is a great contributor to capitalism - I think that is mostly twaddle... The liquidity gives us these crazy booms, which have many problems as well as virtues.”

Thinking Giving Problem Common Virtue Crazy Capitalism Notion Contributors Liquidity

Author:Charlie Munger

“This fine young man had all the inclination to be a profligate of the first water, and only lacked the one good trait in the common catalogue of debauched vices - open-handedness - to be a notable vagabond. But there his griping and penurious habits stepped in; and as one poison will sometimes neutralise another, when wholesome remedies would not avail, so he was restrained by a bad passion from quaffing his full measure of evil, when virtue might have sought to hold him back in vain.”

Source: Children's Tales from Dickens – The Great Classics & The Wonderful Stories for Children (Illustrated Edition): Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Holiday Romance, The Old Curiosity Shop, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, Christmas Stories, A Child’s Dream of a Star…

“Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.”

Common Courage Virtue Vulgar

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)

“Surely, 'tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him soso here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the characterof generosity and virtue.”

Thinking Men Way Wells Character Values Common Acting Steps Support Virtue Honest Goodness Charity Generosity Common Life

Author:Laurence Sterne

“Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain, have something in them that surpasses the human. They lead a life of such innocence,that the heavens owe them some recognition: that they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down is hardly the result of common virtues.”

Humans Christian Heaven Results Common Christianity Virtue Stronger Arise Recognition Innocence Vain Beaten Persecution

Author:Pierre Corneille

“Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.”

“Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness; for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation ofthe word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.”

Happiness Common Virtue Quiet Conscious Foundation Guilt Riches Cures Inward Solid Foundation

Book:The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author

Source: The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author

“If thou takest virtue for the rule of life, and valuest thyself upon acting in all things comfortably thereto, thou wilt have no cause to envy lords and princes; for blood is inherited, but virtue is common property, and may be acquired by all; it has, moreover, an intrinsic worth, which blood has not.”

Ifs May Causes Common Acting Lord Virtue Blood All Things Property Envy Thyself Rules Of Life

Author:Miguel de Cervantes

“Resignation is, to some extent, spoiled for me by the fact that it is so entirely conformable to the laws of common-sense. I should like just a little more of the supernatural in the practice of my favorite virtue.”

Should Littles Facts Law Common Practice Virtue My Favorite Common Sense Spoiled Resignation

Author:Sophie Swetchine

“A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason.”

Ifs May Reason Common Virtue Vices Sober Chaste Drunkards Womanizer

Author:W. H. Auden

“The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue.”

Men Religious Perfect Common Virtue Perfection Constant Heroic Small Things Fidelity Perfect Man Common Things

Author:Bonaventure

“The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.”

People Men Common Virtue Figures Example Judging Morality Vices Stamps Immorality Do Not Judge

Author:Roger L'Estrange

“The desire to be singular and to astonish by ways out of the common seems to me to be the source of many virtues.”

Way Seems Desire Common Virtue Source

Author:Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

“There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone...In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues.”

“Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.”

Mind May Doe Matter Body Action Law Science Understanding Common Teach Virtue Flow Logic Aim Lays Notion Determined Abstract Slender

Book:Works of Francis Bacon: 4

Source: Works of Francis Bacon: 4

“It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.”

Source: Works: with a life of the author

“A surprising feature of herbal research is that it is seldom the rare, exotic, and beautiful plant that proves the most interesting; more often it is some common, familiar, and despised weed that is discovered to have undreamed-of virtues.”

Beautiful Interesting Common Virtue Prove Research Plant Familiar Features Weed Surprising Most Interesting Exotic Despised

Author:Euell Gibbons

“The superior man... does not set his mind either for or against anything, he will pursue whatever is right. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man of comfort.”

Thinking Men Mind Doe Common Virtue Comfort Superiors Pursue Common Man Superior Man

Author:Confucius

“Kindness is no common virtue. It is a rare gift.”

Common Kindness Virtue

Author:David Samuels

“Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge - a common understanding - likemindedness as the sociologists say.”

Men Way Form Order Belief Understanding Community Common Virtue Communication Aim Aspiration Sociologists

Book:Democracy And Education

Source: Democracy And Education