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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“Two diverse gates there are of bodiless dreams, These of sawn ivory, and those of horn. Such dreams as issue where the ivory gleams Fly without fate, and turn our hopes to scorn. But dreams which issue through the burnished horn, What man soe'er beholds them on his bed, These work with virtue and of truth are born.”

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Book:Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems
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“Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.”

MenGivingHas BeensMadeI CanFactsTogetherRememberReligiousVirtueHappenedTeachingStupidExampleEvolutionAuthorityIntelligentPraiseEducatedMinistersIllegalOne WordIdentificationOwingEducated ManReligious Education
Book:Education and the Social Order
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“People continued regardless of all that leads man forward to try to unite the incompatibles:;: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.”

PeopleMenTryingOrderEvilAcceptingVirtueViolenceTeachingDespiteTortureContradictionAllowingRestraining
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

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Author:Walter Lippmann
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“To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.”

MenHas BeensDoneLyingVirtueGreaterWorstBoundsVicesInsightCriminalsSecureMediocrityApprovalConventional
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
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“The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers. I, on the contrary, maintain that they ought to be praised in their lifetime if they merit it; but jealousy and calumny, roused against their virtue or their talent, labour to degrade them if any one ventures to bear testimony to them. It is unjust criticism that they should fear to hazard, not sincere praise.”

IfsMenShouldVirtueTalentBearsOughtCriticismPraiseLifetimePhilosopherEnvyContraryMeritLabourSincereVentureUnjustTestimonyAdoptedMaximsHazardsDegradeCalumnyUnjust Criticism
Author:Luc de Clapiers
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“Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.”

IfsMenWayGivingSaidStatesEnoughAbleJoyVirtueHumourStrangeMastersLaughterDown AndTiredExtremesRecoveryThemeStayingYieldWornPausesHumoristsPrecious ThingsJesterConsecutiveStaying Power
Book:And Even Now
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“Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. ... To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism.”

MenFirstsMayHas BeensImportantSufferingOrderWishVirtueTaughtHighestConcernTestsVirtuousAltruismParts Of LifeFountainheadSuffering Of Others
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it. We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother. For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man's toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.”

MenMatterMightMotherVirtueOur LivesWifeChangedHonorMoonNo Matter WhatGrandmotherThreatenedVirginsRestlessnessRigidityFaithlessMother GrandmotherWife MotherTogas
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Every virtuous woman desires a husband to whom she can look for guidance and protection through this world. God has placed this desire in woman's nature. It should be respected by the stronger sex. Any man who takes advantage of this, and humbles a daughter of Eve to rob her of her virtue, and cast her off dishonored and defiled, is her destroyer, and is responsible to God for the deed.”

MenWorldShouldLooksDesireSexVirtueThis WorldHusbandDaughterAdvantageStrongerResponsibleCastsDeedsProtectionGuidanceVirtuousDestroyersVirtuous Woman
Book:Journal of Discourses
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“It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride.”

MenFirstsHumansPoliticalMoralVirtueHuman NaturePridePoliticianManagementConvincedVisibleAppetiteSuperstitionsFlatteryInclinationCrossingsOffspringHeathenMoral Virtues
Book:The Fable of the Bees
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“One good Man may take another's Word, if they so agree, but a whole Nation ought never to trust to any Honesty, but what is built upon Necessity; for unhappy is the People, and their Constitution will be ever precarious, whose Welfare must depend upon the Virtues and Consciences of Ministers and Politicians.”

PeopleIfsMenMayWholeNationsVirtueHonestyDependsOughtPoliticianConscienceBuiltConstitutionAgreeUnhappyMinistersWelfareGood ManPrecarious
Author:Bernard de Mandeville
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“A man governs himself by the dictates of virtue and good sense, who acts without zeal or passion in points that are of no consequence; but when the whole community is shaken, and the safety of the public endangered, the appearance of a philosophical or an affected indolence must arise either from stupidity or perfidiousness.”

MenWholePassionCommunityVirtueConsequencePhilosophicalSafetyAppearanceStupidityAriseAffectedZealGood SenseIndolence
Book:The Works of [the Right Honourable] Joseph Addison: The Spectator, no. 483-600. The Guardian. The lover. The present state of the war. The late trial and cenviction of Count Tariff. The Whig-examiner. The Freeholder, no. 1-30
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“Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits, and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind.”

MenCountryWholeVirtueWonderfulMankindHe ManEuropeExcellenceBlowOur CountryIslandsEmpiresRegionsContinentsEgyptColumnsLibyaAtlantis
Book:Gorgias and Timaeus
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“When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.”

MenVirtueHe ManMusicianHarmonyNotesWorthyCompareThemeDelightedCorrespondenceTrue Man
Book:The Dialogues of Plato
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“The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility.”

ThinkingMenBelieveAsksAttitudeQualitySupportVirtueParticularCircumstancesAdvantageComplexesHumanismDefinitionsTolerancePrizeCherishFlexibilityStatureAmenities
Author:Lionel Trilling
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“As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow.”

MenSelfTogetherIndividualLevelsNumbersVirtueWorstBoundsVicesClubsPopsSelf ConfidenceScholarCommitteesJuryComposing
Author:Aleister Crowley
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“Man's birth is a lottery; it may be in the pleasant home of ease and affluence, or in the hut of poverty; in either case it may be a stain or an honor. If he is born in poverty, and his future life throws a lustre over an humble birth, the reward will not only be great, but his name will stand higher on the roll of honor and virtue, than he who can only boast of his proud descent.”

IfsMenMayHomeNamesBornPovertyCasesVirtueProudBirthHigherHonorRewardsHumbleEasePleasantBoastStainsLotteryDescentAffluenceHutsFuture Life
Author:James Ellis
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“Harvey was not content merely to gather knowledge; he digested and arranged it under the guidance of the faculties which compare and reason. ... Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities ... one of the great men whom God, in virtue of his eternal laws, bids to appear on earth from time to time to enlighten, and to ennoble mankind.”

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Author:William Harvey
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“Antiphon, as another man gets pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good, I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another.”

IfsMenBookWisdomAbleTogetherLeftPleasureBehindsTeachVirtueWiseWrittenDogProveBirdPicksMy FriendsHorseProfitTreasureIntroducingGood FriendLeft BehindAnother ManGood Horse
Author:Socrates
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“On the whole, however, the critic is far less of a professional faultfinder than is sometimes imagined. He is first of all a virtue-finder, a singer of praise. He is not concerned with getting rid of dross except in so far as it hides the gold. In other words, the destructive side of criticism is purely a subsidiary affair. None of the best critics have been men of destructive minds. They are like gardeners whose business is more with the flowers than with the weeds.”

MenMindFirstsHas BeensSometimesWholeSidesVirtueFlowerConcernedCriticismGoldPraiseCriticsAffairSingersDestructiveWeedGardenerDross
Author:Robert Wilson Lynd
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“Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.”

ThinkingMenLyingVirtueDutyGratitudeThousandTenGuidesPunishmentObligationOne ManVirtuousGiverApprehension
Book:The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With an Account of His Life and Writings : Stereotyped from the Paris Edition : Complete in One Volume
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