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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“When what has been created in time according to the temporal order has reached maturity, it ceases from natural growth. But when what has been brought about by the knowledge of God through the practice of the virtues has reached maturity, it starts to grow anew. For the end of one stage constitutes the starting point of the next.”

Has BeensEndsChristianOrderNextGrowsGrowthNaturalPracticeVirtueStageStartingCeaseMaturityOrthodoxStarting PointKnowledge Of God
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory.”

StatesReasonChristianOrderFatherMemoriesExistenceSupportVirtueWiseYouthDependsImportanceEncouragementInstitutionsFoundationInstanceMannersAffectedBlessRepublicSensiblePosterityOur FatherPietyGood EducationSupport And Encouragement
Author:John Hancock
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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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“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power -- God, history, fate, nation, or humanity.”

HandsHumanityOrderStrongNationsPowerfulResponsibilityVirtueFateHigherWeakClaimsInstrumentsChosenObedienceImpulseLatterInclinationCravingHigher PowerQuestionableProclaimingAbsolutionMalevolence
Book:Bruce Lee: Artist of Life
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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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“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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“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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“For a woman ... to explore and express the fullness of her sexuality, her ambitions, her emotional and intellectual capacities, her social duties, her tender virtues, would entail who knows what risks and who knows what truly revolutionary alteration to the social conditions that demean and constrain her. Or she may go on trying to fit herself into the order of the world and thereby consign herself forever to the bondage of some stereotype of normal femininity - a perversion, if you will.”

IfsKnowsWorldTryingMayOrderSocialForeverVirtueRiskConditionsEmotionalDutyGoes OnFitNormalAmbitionIntellectualCapacitySexualityRevolutionaryStereotypeFemininityBondageFullnessPerversionAlterationsConstrainSocial Conditions
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
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“When Nietzsche praises egoism it is always in an aggressive or polemical way, against the virtues, against the virtue of disinterestedness (Z III "Of the three evil things"). But in fact egoism is a bad interpretation of the will, just as atomism is a bad interpretation of force. In order for there to be egoism it is necessary for there to be an ego.”

WayFactsOrderThreeEvilForceVirtueEgoPraiseInterpretationAggressiveEgoismEvil Things
Book:Nietzsche and Philosophy
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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.”

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Book:Public and private papers
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“The neccessity for making a living keeps our minds so bound down to the details of professional success that we sometimes forget there is anything except professional success to live for. The necessity of conforming our habits and standards to the habits and standards of those about us, in order that we may do efficient work, makes us forget that there is a point where conformity ceases to be a virtue.”

InspirationalMindMaySometimesOrderForgetVirtueHabitStandardsBoundsDetailsCeaseConformityEfficientConformMaking A LivingProfessional SuccessEfficient Work
Author:Arthur Twining Hadley
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“There surely is a being who presides over the universe; and who, with infinite wisdom and power, has reduced the jarring elementsinto just order and proportion. Let speculative reasoners dispute, how far this beneficent being extends his care, and whether he prolongs our existence beyond the grave, in order to bestow on virtue its just reward, and render it fully triumphant.”

GodCareOrderUniverseExistenceVirtueInfiniteRewardsGravesProportionDisputesTriumphant
Book:Selected essays
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“The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.”

MenWellsMayValuesOrderForcePleasureBoysVirtueExerciseDifficultyInnocentHeightSubtleUtilityFacility
Book:Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c
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“Man is an Animal, formidable both from his Passions and his Reason; his Passions often urging him to great Evils, and his Reason furnishing Means to achieve them. To train this Animal, and make him amenable to Order; to inure him to a Sense of Justice and Virtue, to withhold him from ill Courses by Fear, and encourage him in his Duty by Hopes; in short, to fashion and model him for Society, hath been the Aim of civil and religious Institutions; and, in all Times, the Endeavour of good and wise Men. The aptest Method for attaining this End, hath been always judged a proper Education.”

MenMeanEndsReasonOrderPassionCoursesEvilReligiousJusticeAnimalEducationVirtueWiseAchieveFashionDutyModelsAimMethodInstitutionsTrainIllAll TimeEndeavorJudgedFormidableAmenable
Author:George Berkeley
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“A sick man, surrounded by those who love him, nursed by those who wish earnestly that he should live, will recover (all other things being equal), when another patient tended by hirelings will die. Doctors decline to see unconscious magnestism in this phenomenon; for them it is the result of intelligent nursing, of exact obedience to their orders; but many a mother knows the virtue of such ardent projections of strong, unceasing prayer.”

KnowsMenShouldMotherOrderDiesStrongWishPrayerResultsVirtueHealthEqualDoctorsSickIntelligentPatientObedienceUnconsciousPhenomenonDeclineProjectionNursingArdentBeing EqualSick Man
Author:Honore de Balzac
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“Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences.”

PeopleWellsDifferentCountryBodyOrderLiteratureOpportunityInterestLibertyVirtueRightsDutyDependsPeriodsAdvantageVariousCherishGraduationPreservationLegislatorsCommonwealthMagistratesKnowledge And Wisdom
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“Virtue is the panacea for both body and mind. The virtuous person can be both healthy and happy. How is virtue to be cultivated? How can it express itself in daily practice? Through service to living beings, through seva. Virtue must flow through the triple channel of love, mercy and detachment, in order to feed the roots of seva.”

MindPersonsBodyOrderPracticeVirtueHealthyFlowRootsMercyVirtuousMind And BodyDetachmentPanaceaHealthy And Happy
Author:Sathya Sai Baba
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“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.”

MenWayFormOrderBeliefUnderstandingCommunityCommonVirtueCommunicationAimAspirationSociologists
Book:Democracy And Education
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“Every nation-state tends towards the imperial - that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top.”

StatesLawOrderNationsSecretVirtueTaxesArmyPoliceCourtMythObediencePropagandaAssumptionJailTreatiesCivicsLaw And OrderSecret PoliceCivic Virtue
Book:The Nightmare of God: The Book of Revelation
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