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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“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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“People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldMindBelieveMayLiteratureIndividualVirtueSelf EsteemSelf LoveFaultsSelf ConfidenceEsteemCharmSelf RespectContemplatingJust Love YourselfInspiring Self Esteem
Book:The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)
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“The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds.”

MindPersonsVirtueFacultyRadiantLatentCasketsProbity
Book:Gargantua and Pantagruel: Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and his Son Pantagruel
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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.”

MenMindWellsHeartMatterEyeCoursesSexWomenQualityKnowingVirtueGraceDependsChiefsMisfortunesHeart And MindCaptivesHer BeautyArbiter
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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“If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.”

IfsMindFirstsChildrenSoulMatterMightLawSpiritOrderEnergyLanguageNaturalMemoriesForgetResultsTeachVirtueTeacherYouthFineGeniusJudgmentGloryOur ChildrenImpulseSuccess In LifeDependenceDispositionScopeEloquenceEndeavourVivacity
Author:Luc de Clapiers
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“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.”

IfsMindKindMadeDifferentMightActionQualityVirtueAwarenessDutyExerciseActivityMade ItPermanentApplicationDifferent KindsFloatingLinkedConjunctions
Book:In Search Of Lost Time, Vol 2: Within a Budding Grove
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“As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not quiet because quietness is said to be good. He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disturb his quietude. When water is still, one's beard and eyelashes are reflected in it. A skilled carpenter uses it in a level to obtain a measurement. If still water is so clear, how much more are the mental faculties! The mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.”

IfsMindSaidStillsUseEarthHeavenWaterLevelsVirtueClearQuietAll ThingsMirrorsRegardBe GoodFacultyMultitudesSageBeardMeasurementHeaven And EarthQuietnessCarpenterEyelashesStill Waters
Author:Zhuangzi
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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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“Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces or infirmity suffers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings... Those whom the appearance of virtue or the evidence of genius has tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer, in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity.”

WritingMindHumansMayReasonSufferingFoundVirtueProduceGeniusEvidencePerformancesCuriosityAppearanceFollyHuman MindManifestTemptedRepentInfirmityInconsistency
Book:Selected poetry and prose
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“Without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue. You have to have courage - courage of different kinds: first, intellectual courage, to sort out different values and make up your mind about which is the one which is right for you to follow. You have to have moral courage to stick up to that - no matter what comes in your way, no matter what the obstacle and the opposition is.”

WayMindFirstsKindDifferentMatterValuesMoralPracticeVirtueIntellectualNo Matter WhatSticksObstaclesOppositionDifferent KindsHave CourageMoral CourageMake Up Your MindDifferent Values
Author:Indira Gandhi
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“I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'.”

KnowsWorldYearsMindHumansHas BeensMomentsLastsLife IsSpiritCertainEnergyGivenCausesMy OwnVirtueIgnoranceRegretConsciousNobleLiberationUselessHuman MindDedicatedInertiaTimidityPrecious GiftsNoble Causes
Author:Maya Angelou
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“the leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world!”

WorldMindHumansReasonLyingEvilDarkVirtueIgnoranceRootsBlindMiseryErrorsGuidesHuman MindTremblingFelicityBaneHuman HappinessHuman ReasonPoisoners
Author:Frances Wright
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“That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.”

IfsWritingMindBookUseWould BeVirtuePositionPraiseMirrorsConclusionSatanAuthorshipOstentation
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.”

MenMindLooksStillsSoulNaturalForeverVirtueAmbitionGloryEternityShiningLook UpCarrie
Book:The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...
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“Enthusiasm is always connected with the senses, whatever be the object that excites it. The true strength of virtue is serenity of mind, combined with a deliberate and steadfast determination to execute her laws. That is the healthful condition of the moral life; on the other hand, enthusiasm, even when excited by representations of goodness, is a brilliant but feverish glow which leaves only exhaustion and languor behind.”

MindHandsLawBehindsMoralVirtueConditionsObjectsGoodnessDeterminationExcitedConnectedBrilliantSensesEnthusiasmSerenityRepresentationDeliberateExhaustionSteadfastTrue StrengthMoral Life
Author:Immanuel Kant
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“Any base heart can devise means of vileness, and affix the ugly shapings of its own fancy to the actions of those around him; but it requires loftiness of mind, and the heaven-born spirit of virtue, to imagine greatness where it is not, and to deck the sordid objects of nature in the beautiful robes of loveliness and light.”

MindHeartMeanLightActionBeautifulSpiritHeavenBornVirtueImagineObjectsGreatnessUglyFancySuspicionDeckRobesLoveliness
Book:Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks
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“Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return the same, or the like, as occasions of the doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to. He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one, should never remember it.”

ShouldMindDoeTogetherRememberTurnsAbilityForgetVirtueReturnGratitudeBenefitsOccasionsNever ForgetInwardForget ItReadinessDoersReceiverAcknowledgment
Author:Pierre Charron
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“Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.”

IfsWorldWantShouldMindShowsWinningVirtueHonorSeekingEnvyGrudge
Book:Resolves: divine, moral and political
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“The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years, he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent.”

YearsMindWellsKindReasonBodyAgePassionEvilHistoryVirtueTaughtAll ThingsPatientVicesTwelveSubmitIndifferentHarvestMidnightConferencesLecturesRoman Empire
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.”

MindHumansHas BeensSeemsPassionSexLove IsEnemyHistoryVirtueProgressDangerousHuman NatureAppetiteSentimentalGrossPolishIntercourseCivilisationChastityRoman EmpireRefinementSoftness
Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers.”

MenMindLongSelfGovernmentAgeSufferingBornVirtueProgressTeachingConditionsTaughtOughtExerciseLimitsCapacityEconomicsPrejudiceLimitationRulersUnlimitedDominionReactionariesUnlimited Power
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.”

PeopleGivingShouldMindValuesOrderNationsLibertyMoralVirtueSecurityBearsCitizensRepublicanTaxesWeightEncouragementProtectionMeritDistinctionConsiderationEnlighteningIdentificationEmulation
Book:Public and private papers
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