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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“In the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against the assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities which we group together under the name of character.”

CharacterTogetherNamesQualityMoralVirtueGroupsDevelopmentBalanceBattlePerfectionIntellectActivePassiveAssemblageGreat BattleBattle Of Life
Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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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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“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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“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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“Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.”

MaySaidCertainQualityVirtueBecomingInstrumentsVicesOccasionsSensibilitySeductionOrnamentsAmiableAttire
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
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“War, like all other situations of danger and of change, calls forth the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of men.”

MenWarEyeSufferingEvilQualitySituationVirtueCrimeDangerSorrowIntellectualGlorySightTrainDwellingAdmirableExertion
Author:William C. Bryant
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“the New Englander landed on a stony, barren tract, and a large share of his strength during two centuries has gone to force a living out of it. Hence he has come to regard economy - a necessary unpleasant quality at best - as the chief of virtues. He has cultivated habits which verge on closeness in dealing with food, and with the expression of feeling, and even - his enemies think - with feeling itself.”

ThinkingTwoFeelingsForceQualityEnemyEconomyGoneVirtueShareCenturyExpressionHabitRegardChiefsBarrenVergeClosenessThriftExpression Of Feeling
Author:Rebecca Harding Davis
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“Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.”

StatesWholeHappensPoliticalFallCausesLinesQualityVirtueAffairVicesExcessGravityMasculineFortitudeFidelityMischiefDisagreeableConstancyFirmnessObstinacyMagnanimityAbhorrence
Book:Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier
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“If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.”

IfsMenTwoSoulWholeNaturalQualityMoralOpinionVirtueAcquireFacultyDispositionPrudenceClevernessForming Opinions
Author:Aristotle
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“Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”

MenWayKindMeanLittlesDifferentStatesReasonGovernmentFormPerfectQualityPracticeVirtueHuman NatureHighestVariousRealizationReason WhyDifferent WaysForms Of GovernmentPerfect Practice
Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions, yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful.”

WayMayChildrenDifferentMomentsNaturalAnimalQualityMoralVirtueHuman NatureBirthGoodnessCapableBraveVariousPossessedNeverthelessDispositionAnother WayTemperanceWild Animal
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
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“If then, as we say, good craftsmen look to the mean as they work, and if virtue, like nature, is more accurate and better than any form of art, it will follow that virtue has the quality of hitting the mean. I refer to moral virtue [not intellectual], for this is concerned with emotions and actions, in which one can have excess or deficiency or a due mean.”

IfsLooksMeanArtActionFormEmotionQualityMoralVirtueIntellectualConcernedDuesExcessAccurateHittingDeficiencyCraftsmanMoral VirtuesIf Then
Book:The Nicomachean ethics
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“In all times and in all places--in Constantinople, northwestern Zambia, Victorian England, Sparta, Arabia, . . . medieval France,Babylonia, . . . Carthage, Mahenjo-Daro, Patagonia, Kyushu, . . . Dresden--the time span between childhood and adulthood, however fleeting or prolonged, has been associated with the acquisition of virtue as it is differently defined in each society. A child may be good and morally obedient, but only in the process of arriving at womanhood or manhood does a human being become capable of virtue--that is, the qualities of mind and body that realize society's ideals.”

MindHumansMayChildrenDoeHas BeensBodyProcessRealizingHuman BeingsQualityVirtueChildhoodCapableIdealsEnglandBe GoodAll TimeDefinedFranceAdulthoodWomanhoodManhoodFleetingMind And BodyMedievalAcquisitionObedientArabiaArrivingVictorianDresdenSpartaPatagoniaNorthwesternConstantinopleCarthageZambia
Author:Louise J. Kaplan
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“We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.”

ThinkingMayQualityVirtueBenefitsAccountsPraiseCreditNeighborGenerousPocketsSparesBankersGood QualityHighwaymen
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts
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“As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.”

MenFirstsPoliticalFatherPoliticsPresidentQualityVirtueBearsKingsOfficeVicesCollectivesPeculiarSenateResemblancePrecariousKnowledge WisdomHereditaryCollective Knowledge
Author:Tench Coxe
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“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”

LifeCareHappinessQualityVirtueDependsNotionTake CareHappyReasonableTrue HappinessGreat HappinessLife HappinessLife And HappinessSecret To HappinessWhat Is HappinessAttaining HappinessMoney HappinessHappy InspirationalMoney And HappinessHappier LifeVirtue And HappinessChoosing Happiness
Book:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus: His Conversation with Himself. Together with the Preliminary Discourse of the Learned Gataker
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