Best virtue & people Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 2

“One seldom loves people for their virtues.”

“The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.”

People World Years Two Government Spirit United History Virtue Objects Periods Forty Two Years Sole Reign Great People Roman Empire

Book:The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition

Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition

“The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still dreaded, the arms of the young Caesar; his soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favourites, who had opposed his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Every person - whether Greek or Barbarian - who is in training for wisdom, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return it unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time - courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies - in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people. ... People such as these, who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long.”

“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.”

Source: Public and private papers

“From the 5th grade through the 4th year of college, our young people are being indoctrinated with a Marxist philosophy and I am fearful of the harvest. The younger generation is further to the left than most adults realize. The old concepts of our Founding Fathers are scoffed and jeered at by young moderns whose goals appear to be the destruction of integrity and virtue, and the glorification of pleasure, thrills, and self-indulgence.”

“The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.”

People Feelings Joy Belief Wealth Virtue Middle Exercise Comfort Rely Ecstasy Entitled Starving Rapture Shortcuts Legion Personal Strength

Book:Authentic Happiness

Source: Authentic Happiness

“Courage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage that they would stand up, that they could be counted on.”

People Way Fighting Causes President Virtue Speech Baseball Diamond Battlefields President Kennedy Profiles In Courage

Author:Robert Kennedy

“I do believe that nice religious people make the world safe for extremists by teaching us [...] that faith is a virtue, teaching us that there's something good about holding beliefs without any substantiating evidence. Once you buy into that, [...] then the door is opened to extremists who defend their extremism by saying, 'Oh well, it's my faith, you can't touch it, you can't criticise my faith, I don't even need to defend it because faith is faith.'”

People World Needs Believe Wells Belief Religious Virtue Nice Doors Teaching Safe Evidence Extremism Extremist Oh Well Criticise

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it's clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren't very virtuous.”

People Ifs Way Want Mean Self Action Virtue Clear Hero Hollywood Capitalist Virtuous

Author:Alex Tabarrok

“People seldom tell the truths that are worth telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our lies and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon the selection of our enemies.”

People Lying Enemy Virtue Ought Telling The Truth Selection Select

Book:Epigrams of Oscar Wilde

Source: Epigrams of Oscar Wilde

“The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable.”

People Has Beens Made Care Order Virtue Humour Laughter British Odd Damn Acceptable

Author:Theodore Zeldin

“Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion.”

People Animal Courage Virtue Brave Lions Subordinates Personal Courage

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.”

“I'm not one of those people who think you should go grey and that there is some virtue in looking wrinkly if you don't feel like it. If you do, great. If you don't, just my only caution is watch out. There are a huge number of wrinkle creams that do nothing for you.”

People Ifs Thinking Feels Should Numbers Watches Virtue Huge Cream Grey Caution Wrinkles Huge Numbers

Author:Nora Ephron

“Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.”

People Kind Doe Humanity Nations Community Virtue Greater Share Civilization Europe Indian Faithful Abundance Hospitality Polished American Indian Polynesians

Book:Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)

Source: Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)

“The people of the United States have been fortunate in many things. One of the things in which we have been most fortunate has been that so far, due perhaps to certain basic virtues in our traditional ways of doing things, we have managed to keep the crisis of western civilization, which has devastated the rest of the world and in which we are as much involved as anybody, more or less at arm's length.”

“Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.”

“Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging.”

People Hard Deals Virtue Serious Comfortable Candidates Overwhelmed Seriousness Solemn Commonplace Jogging Solemnity

Author:Russell Baker

“Trusting as we did to the virtue of the people, the real people, not the politicians and demagogues, we passed through the most responsible and trying scenes, sustained by the bone and sinew of the nation, the laborers of the land, where alone, in these days of Bank rule, and ragocrat corruption, real virtue and love of liberty is to be found.”

People Trying Real Found Nations Liberty Virtue Land Politician Scene And Love Responsible Workers Corruption Bones These Days Laborers

Author:Andrew Jackson

“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-inhouse, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”

People Needs Heart Long Has Beens Home Today America Virtue Resources Harder Constant East Privacy Elsewhere Defects Desirable Inconvenient Rugged

Author:Phyllis McGinley

“Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.”

“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“One of the vices of the virtue of decentralization is that people don't share ideas.”

People Ideas Business Virtue Share Vices Decentralization

Author:Dorothy Nevill

“Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.”

People Littles Facts Age Virtue Danger Civilized Barbarians Sentimentality Softness

Book:Letters and Speeches

Source: Letters and Speeches

“I think everyone is given drama, by virtue of the fact that we all have drama in our lives, but not everyone can make people laugh.”

People Thinking Facts Given Laughing Virtue Our Lives Drama Making People Laugh

Author:Matthew Lillard

“people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue.”

“Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves - so how can we know anyone else?”

People Knows World Way Real Ability Knowing Virtue Self Help Stranger Self Discovery Cents Not Knowing Woe Ninety Frailty

Author:Sydney J. Harris

“The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.”

People Law Justice Virtue Speech Democratic Granted Free Speech Took For Granted

Author:Antonin Scalia

“For the honest people, relations increase with the years. For the vicious, inconveniences increase. Inconstancy is the defect of vice; the influence of habit is one of the qualities of virtue.”

People Years Quality Virtue Influence Honest Habit Increase Relation Vices Defects Vicious Inconvenience Honest People Inconstancy

Author:Suzanne Curchod

“If the chief party, whether it be the people, or the army, or the nobility, which you think most useful and of most consequence to you for the conservation of your dignity, be corrupt, you must follow their humor and indulge them, and in that case honesty and virtue are pernicious.”

People Ifs Thinking Party Cases Virtue Honesty Consequence Dignity Army Corruption Chiefs Conservation Nobility Indulge Pernicious

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli

“People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.”

People Turns Virtue Streets Wall Investing Making Money Appeals Speculation Hype Brokers Gaudy

Book:The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed

Source: The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed

“The kinds of people we need in government are precisely the kinds of people who are most reluctant to go into government -- people who understand the inherent dangers of power and feel a distaste for using it, but who may do so for a few years as a civic duty. The worst kind of people to have in government are those who see it as a golden opportunity to impose their own superior wisdom and virtue on others.”

People Needs Feels Years Kind May Government Opportunity Leadership Virtue Worst Danger Duty Superiors Golden Inherent Civics Reluctant Civic Duty Distaste Golden Opportunity

Book:Controversial Essays

Source: Controversial Essays

“People who don't like cats always seem to think there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them.”

People Thinking Seems Virtue Cat Peculiar

Author:Lucy Maud Montgomery

“So often I heard people paying blind obeisance to change - as though it had some virtue of its own. Change or we will die. Change or we will stagnate. Evergreens don't stagnate.”

People Dies Change Virtue Heard Blind Evergreens

Author:Judith Perelman Rossner

“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

“I cannot see why a taste for the country should be held so very indispensable a requisite for excellence; but really people talk of it as if it were a virtue, and as if an opposite opinion was, to say the least of it, very immoral.”

People Ifs Should Country Opinion Virtue Taste Opposites Excellence Indispensable Immoral

Book:The Complete Works of L.E. Landon

Source: The Complete Works of L.E. Landon

“Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses itself any reaction with regard to itself or its deeds. This virtue differs from and surpasses sincerity. We see many people who are sincere without being simple. They do not wish to be taken for other than what they are; but they are always fearing lest they should be taken for what they are not.”

People Should Soul Wish Simple Virtue Taken Regard Simplicity Refuse Deeds Reactions Sincere Sincerity

Author:Francois Fenelon

“Republics demanded virtue. Monarchies could rely on coercion and "dazzling splendor" to suppress self-interest or factions; republics relied on the goodness of the people to put aside private interest for public good. The imperatives of virtue attached all sorts of desiderata to the republican citizen: simplicity, frugality, sobriety, simple manners, Christian benevolence, duty to the polity. Republics called on other virtues--spiritedness, courage--to protect the polity from external threats. Tyrants kept standing armies; republics relied on free yeomen, defending their own land.”

“We underestimate the value of patience. It is possible that people might sometimes interrupt our meditation sessions or Dharma study, but they can never take away our opportunity to train in inner virtues such as patience. It is this mental training, rather than outer virtuous activities, that is the essence of Dharma practice.”

People Sometimes Might Values Opportunity Practice Virtue Study Meditation Activity Training Essence Train Virtuous Underestimate Session Dharma

Author:Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

“Every man is responsible for defending every woman and every child. When the male no longer takes this role, when he no longer has the courage or feels the moral responsibility, then that society will no longer be a society where honor and virtue are esteemed. Laws and government cannot replace this personal caring and commitment. In the absence of the Warrior protector, the only way that a government can protect a society is to remove the freedom of the people. And the sons and daughters of lions become sheep.”

“Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.”

People Real Virtue Faults

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another.”

People Nations Virtue Regard Intellect Chosen Chosen One

Book:A Theologico-Political Treatise

Source: A Theologico-Political Treatise

“The Bible places supreme value in the thought life. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin's gravity lay in the idea itself, not just the act. "Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote, "Whatever is true ... pure ... if there be any virtue ... think on these things." Thus, the follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it is not just to think, but to think justly.”

People Ifs Thinking Men World Mind Heart Ideas Values Jesus Christ Church Sin Virtue Pure Lays Supreme Followers Gravity Thoughts On Life Solomon A Man Thinketh

Author:Ravi Zacharias

“Every day, people say crappy things about my band or whatever, but I live a positive existence. I got through everything by virtue of having the same passion that I've had through the years.”

People Years Passion Existence Virtue Band Through The Years

Author:Andy Biersack

“The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that.”

People Different Government Hate Religious Virtue Backgrounds Free Market Intervention Government Intervention Ethnic Background

Author:Milton Friedman

“We cannot assume that people by virtue of the fact that they are black are going to associate themselves with progressive political struggles. We need to divest ourselves the kinds of strategies that assume that black unity black political unity is possible.”

People Needs Kind Facts Political Black Struggle Virtue Strategy Assuming Unity Progressive Associates Political Struggle

Author:Angela Davis

“The tools are evolving, and people's interests are evolving as well. So, suddenly people like to hear bands, people like Devendra Banhart or the xx, bands that make a kind of virtue of sloppiness. That isn't what they would describe what they're doing, but the fact is they make a virtue of the sort of hand-made nature of what they're doing.”

People Wells Kind Made Facts Hands Interest Virtue Band Tools Evolve Sloppiness

Author:Brian Eno

“Temptations come on some people for the cleansing of previous sins, on other for the beautification of their current perfection, and on yet others, as preparation for things to come, except temptations, which are for the increase of a man's faith and virtue, as it was with Job.”

People Men Inspirational Christian Jobs Religious Sin Virtue Perfection Increase Currents Temptation Preparation Orthodox Cleansing Beautification

Author:Maximus the Confessor

“The more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances - the more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.”

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Virtue Quotes