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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“No benefit comes from a just man's prayer if he who asks for it finds more pleasure in sin than in virtue. For Samuel mourned over Saul when he sinned, but he was not able to obtain God's mercy, for his grief was not supported by the necessary change of life on the part of the sinner. Hence God put an end to the pointless grief of His servant, saying to him, 'How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?' (I Sam. 16:1).”

IfsMenLongEndsAbleChristianAsksPrayerSinPleasureGriefVirtueSeeingBenefitsMercyIsraelServantLife ChangingSinnerOrthodoxRejectedMournPointlessNecessary Change
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Just as the teaching of the Law and the prophets, being harbingers of the coming advent of the Logos in the flesh, guide our souls to Christ (cf. Gal. 3:24), so the glorified incarnate Logos of God is Himself a harbinger of His spiritual advent, leading our souls forward by His own teachings to receive His divine and manifest advent. He does this ceaselessly, by means of the virtues converting those found worthy from the flesh to the spirit. And He will do it at the end of the age, making manifest what has hitherto been hidden from men.”

MenMeanDoeSoulEndsAgeChristianSpiritualLawSpiritFoundChristVirtueTeachingDivineWorthyGuidesFleshProphetOrthodoxManifestAdventConvertingCfsLogosGalsHarbinger
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

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Author:John Galt
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“There can be no richer man or woman than the individual who has found his or her labor of love. Personal fulfillment through the virtue of work is the highest form of desire. Work is the conduit between the supply and the demand of all human needs, the forerunner of human progress, and the medium by which the imagination is given the wings of action. A labor of love is exalted because it provides joy and self-expression to those who perform it.”

MenNeedsHumansSelfActionFormJoyDesireFoundIndividualGivenImaginationLove IsActingVirtueProgressExpressionDemandHighestLaborWingsMediumsFulfillmentSelf ExpressionExaltedHuman NeedsHuman ProgressForerunnersPersonal FulfillmentLabor Of LoveFulfillment In Life
Book:What Makes the Great Great: Strategies for Extraordinary Achievement
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“Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”

MenCharacterSportsAnimalCompassionVirtueHonestyIntegrityCreaturesFellowsKillingCrueltyTortureVeganAnimal RightsHuntingVegetarianismVeganismAmusingCriminal MindAnimal WelfareAnimal CrueltyAnimal LoveWild AnimalVegetarian HealthAnimal WorldPet AnimalsAnimal CompassionAnimal AbuseAnimal TestingKilling AnimalsCompassion Towards AnimalsSmall CreaturesWild CreaturesKilling A ManWild ManOpen Season
Author:James Anthony Froude
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“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

MenPhilosophyCharacterPoliticalPoliticsMoralVirtueModernHonestyIgnorancePoliticianMoralityExerciseIntegrityClimate ChangeConservativeSelfishSuperiorsSelfishnessEngagedLiberalismJustificationConservatismMoral PhilosophySelf JustificationAnti ConservativeModern PhilosophyModern PoliticsConservative Political
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
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“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

MenMindI CanMatterWholeTogetherScienceForceResultsBehindsExistenceVirtueStudyClearMinutesResearchConsciousIntelligentAssumingWhole LifeAtomsDevotedParticlesVibrationsSolar System
Author:Max Planck
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“A happy but miserable state in which man finds himself from time to time; sometimes he believes he is happy by loving, then suddenly he finds how miserable he is. It is all joy, it sweetens life, but it does not last. It comes and goes, but when it is active, there is no greater virtue, because it makes one supremely happy.”

MenLoveBelieveDoeSometimesStatesLastsJoyVirtueGreaterActiveMiserableComes And Goes
Book:Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey
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“Some reformers may urge that in the ages distant future, patriotism, like the habit of monogamous marriage, will become a needless and obsolete virtue; but just at present the man who loves other countries as much as he does his own is quite as noxious a member of society as the man who loves other women as much as he loves his wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home.”

MenMayDoeCountryHomeAgeVirtueWifeHe ManHabitMembersPatriotismUrgesOther CountriesObsoleteLike LoveReformersElementalsWives Love
Book:American ideals and other essays, social and political
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“The American Colossus was fiercely intent on appropriating and exploiting the riches of all continents - grasping with both hands, reaping where he had not sown, wasting what he thought would last forever. New railroads were opening new territory. The exploiters were pushing farther and farther into the wilderness. The man who could get his hands on the biggest slice of natural resources was the best citizen. Wealth and virtue were supposed to trot in double harness.”

MenHandsLastsNaturalWealthForeverVirtueLandHe ManCitizensResourcesRichesOpeningPushingWildernessTerritoryContinentsNatural ResourcesRailroadsGraspingHarnessNew TerritoryColossus
Book:Breaking New Ground
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“Some virtues, when they become fashions, also become exaggerated. Just because nobody likes a judgmental attitude does not mean that there isn't a sort of spoiled, self-righteous hypocrisy when one man obsessively commands other men not to judge without knowing the circumstances without himself, too, knowing their circumstances behind their judgments.”

MenMeanDoeSelfBehindsAttitudeKnowingVirtueFashionJudgingCircumstancesJudgmentLikesCommandHypocrisyOne ManRighteousSpoiledExaggeratedJudgmentalMental AttitudeSelf Righteous
Author:Criss Jami
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“There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power (as "the powerful," "the masters," "the commanders") or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as "the rich," "the possessors" (this is the meaning of 'Arya,' and of corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic).”

MenStillsImportantFeltPowerfulVirtueRichExampleMastersHigherShiningNobleVisibleSuperiorityBe A ManCommandersNuanceIranianCorresponding
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. Ten years ago such revelations as these of the Erie Railway would have sent a shudder through the community, and would have placed a stigma on every man who had had to do them. Now they merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations.”

MenYearsSeemsCommunityWealthVirtueCrimeTenYears AgoAimWorthyEvery ManCombinationRevelationsOutrageAcquisitionStigmaRailwayRedeemingAim Of Life
Author:Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
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“Third, and finally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society--but the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding. For whether he has ever studied history or current events, ethics or civics, the rules of a profession or the tools of a trade, he knows that only a respect for the law makes it possible for free men to dwell together in peace and progress.”

KnowsMenTogetherLawUnderstandingResponsibilityVirtueGreaterProgressSpecialEventsCitizensEthicsToolsThirdsTradeCurrentsProfessionObligationEducatedPeacefulCivicsFree ManCurrent EventsPeaceful Society
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.”

KnowsMenGivingLyingOrderNamesKnownVirtueJudgmentCuriosityCornersActiveTerritorySchemesBe A ManSpecialistsInvestigators
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer. I am none of these; I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.”

MenHumansFactsCertainForceTermMemoriesVirtueMinesTypeReaderNormalMessagesClothesLuckCuriosityProphetDistressDistrustGood MemoriesDetestMetaphoricalSeersMaelstrom
Author:Primo Levi
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“Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ, "Felicity", Leibniz: Political Writings Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. JOHN LOCKE, Some Thoughts Concerning Education However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.”

IfsMenWorldWritingBelieveMayYoungPoliticalDesireLostActingEnemyVirtueCrimeHabitHarderDareYoung ManWickedAttributesFelicityWicked ManKnowledge Of The WorldPolitical Writing
Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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“Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.”

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Author:Francois Rabelais
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“It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital--her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course.”

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Author:Christian Nestell Bovee
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“The finest virtues can become deformed with age. The precise mind becomes finicky; the thrifty man, miserly; the cautious man, timorous; the man of imagination, fanciful. Even perseverance ends up in a sort of stupidity. Just as, on the other hand, being too willing to understand too many opinions, too diverse ways of seeing, constancy is lost and the mind goes astray in a restless fickleness.”

MenWayMindEndsHandsAgeLostImaginationOpinionVirtueSeeingWillingHe ManPerseveranceStupidityOld AgeDiverseFinestPreciseRestlessCautiousConstancyThrifty
Book:Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality
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