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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative. A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event.”

ThinkingMeanPersonsImportantEndsLightChristianEvilVirtueClearEventsEgoNegativeIdealsHatredPlantCharitySeedsOpeningChristian LifeGod LoveWeedIntensityHis LoveArrivalsAsceticismPenanceMortificationPull UpsFerocityImportant Events
Author:Fulton J. Sheen
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“Virtues are in the middle, the royal way about which the saintly elder (Saint Basil the Great) said, "Travel on the royal way and count the miles." As I said, the virtues are at the midpoint between excess and laxness. That is why it is written, "Do not turn to the right or the left" (Prov 4:27) but travel on the "royal way" (Num. 20:17). Saint Basil also says, "The person who does not allow his thoughts to incline towards excess or deprivation but directs it to the midpoint, that of virtue, is upright in heart."”

WayHeartPersonsDoeSaidTruthTurnsLeftVirtueWrittenMiddleSaintMilesExcessRoyalEldersDeprivationInclineBasil
Author:Dorotheus of Gaza
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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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“Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .”

PersonsRealityOpinionVirtueEthicsOperationsSufficientVirtuousGood HealthConstancyUniformity
Book:An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections
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“In the founders of great families, titles or attributes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in their descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continue, but the intrinsic value is frequently lost.”

PersonsStillsValuesLostVirtueHonorMarkTitlesMeritAttributesFoundersStampsGrandeurAncestryDescendantsDenominationsIntrinsic ValueGreat Family
Book:The spectator
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“Persons in great stations have seldom their true character drawn till several years after their death. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunities of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.”

YearsPersonsEndsDoneCharacterOpportunityJusticePartyKnowingVirtueGreatnessFaultsCeaseEngagedStationsDispositionEnmityTrue CharacterKnowing The Truth
Book:Essays Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste
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“To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death.”

KnowsPersonsSaidIdeasMatterStatesWould BeReligionBeliefAcceptingVirtueBirthAdultsIslamCan NotCoercion
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with.”

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Book:KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN – Ultimate Collection: 21 Novels & 130+ Short Stories, Fairy Tales and Poems for Children (Illustrated): Including Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm & Penelope Hamilton Series: Rose o' the River, A Summer in a Cañon, The Birds' Christmas Carol, Timothy's Quest, The Arabian Nights, Golden Numbers & many more
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“Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning 'between' and legere meaning 'to choose'. An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned 'to choose between'. He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance, and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.”

KnowsShouldPersonsTwoHateEvilLove IsCompassionVirtueIgnoranceIntelligentIntelligenceSuperiorsCrueltyArroganceIntoleranceGentlenessForbearanceIntelligent Person
Author:J. Martin Klotsche
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“Now I had lived long enough and had heard enough from urchins my age and from other slaves, to distrust the person who calls himself merciful, or just, or kindly. Usually these are the most cruel, niggardly and selfish people, and slaves learn to fear the master who prefaces his remarks with tributes to his own virtues.”

PeoplePersonsLongEnoughAgeVirtueHeardMastersSlaveSelfishHypocrisyDistrustRemarksTributeMercifulSelfish People
Book:I, Juan de Pareja
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“The telephone conversation is, by its very nature, reactive, not reflective. Immediacy is its prime virtue. ... The letter, written in absorbed solitude, is an act of faith: it assumes the presence of humanity: world and self are generated from within: loneliness is courted, not feared. To write a letter is to be alone with my thoughts in the conjured presence of another person. I keep myself imaginative company. I occupy the empty room.”

WorldWritingPersonsSelfHumanityRoomsCompanyVirtueWrittenLonelinessSolitudeConversationEmptyLettersAssumingPrimeTelephonesMy ThoughtsImaginativeImmediacyEmpty Rooms
Author:Vivian Gornick
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“This sutra enjoins a rule of morality. It says nobody should be disrespected. A man can impress evdrybnody by his virtues. Disrespecting others means downfall of our own virtues. A person who disrespects others, in a way disrespect himself. A virtuous man does not disrespect his friend or vevn his enemy. Disrespect to enemy can investigate him toreact. The best thing is to destroy him completely. For a ruler this is very important.”

MenWayShouldMeanPersonsDoeImportantPoliticalEnemyVirtueMoralityBest ThingsVirtuousRulersImpressRespecting OthersDisrespectDownfallDisrespected
Author:Chanakya
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“Inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must be trained by education with an eye to the constitution, if the virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.”

IfsChildrenPersonsStatesWholeEyeGrowsDifferencesEducationHalfGrowing UpVirtueCitizensConstitutionRegardMaking A Difference
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)
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“That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this public education, and how young persons should be educated, are questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is disagreement about the subjects. For mankind are by no means agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the best life. Neither is it clear whether education is more concerned with intellectual or with moral virtue.”

ShouldLooksMeanPersonsStatesCharacterLawYoungEducationMoralVirtueClearSubjectsMankindTaughtIntellectualConcernedAffairEducatedDeniedDisagreementPublic EducationMoral Virtues
Book:Pocket Aristotle
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“Some persons hold that, while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on moral grounds, in the expectation that those who have had a virtuous moral upbringing will respond, yet he is bound to impose chastisement and penalties on the disobedient and ill-conditioned, and to banish the incorrigible out of the state altogether. For (they argue) although the virtuous man, who guides his life by moral ideals, will be obedient to reason, the base, whose desires are fixed on pleasure, must be chastised by pain, like a beast of burden.”

MenPersonsStatesReasonPainLawDesireJusticePleasureMoralVirtueExpectationsIdealsBoundsIllBurdenGuidesArguingFixedBeastVirtuousPenaltiesUpbringingObedientChastisementIncorrigibleBeast Of Burden
Author:Aristotle
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“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.”

PeopleKindPersonsLongWholeJoyCompanyVirtueReturnTrainingCourtMeetingsInjusticeWhole LifeCommitCelebrateGreekContemptCouncilFestivalsLong LifeMarketplaceAssemblyBarbariansReunionBlamelessBusybodies
Author:Pierre Hadot
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“There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life's circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently--without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love.”

PersonsReasonNightCertainGivenAttitudeVirtueEventsStrangeCircumstancesVicesWoundsToleranceComplexityRecognizingFamiliarityInexplicableReason To Love
Author:Marcel Proust
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“When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children. We should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations.”

IfsShouldChildrenPersonsMatterEasyDarkVirtueTypeTreatsFaultsAffectionTreatedLimitationTitlesFollyMatureConceptionReverenceInfantileDazed
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.”

IfsMenPersonsDoeAnswersVirtueWiseDogObjectsMoonAbuseShiningEnvyClamorShine On
Book:Essays: With Annotations by Richard Whately
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“Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.”

MenWellsPersonsEndsGovernmentChristianFormIndividualNumbersMoralPrinciplesVirtueModernSecurityDivinePoliticianComfortDegreesDignityAgreeAncientPhilosopherCommunicateEaseSoberOne WordPaganForms Of GovernmentInquirers
Book:The Works of John Adams: Controversial papers of the Revolution (continued) Works on government
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“And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.”

WantPersonsSoulActionNaturalPoorFictionVirtueSubjectsMaterialsLimitsTragedyContraryInstructionElegantLimbsEnviousDeflection
Book:The Works of George Chapman: Plays
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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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