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Virtue Quotes

Browse 5982 quotes about Virtue.

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Virtue Quotes

“When we think of the height of God's infinity we should not despair of His compassion reaching us from such a height; and when we recall the infinite depth of our fall through sin we should not refuse to believe that the virtue which has been killed in us will rise again. For God can accomplish both these things: He can come down and illumine our intellect with spiritual knowledge, and He can raise up the virtue within us and exalt it with Himself through works of righteousness.”

ThinkingShouldBelieveHas BeensChristianSpiritualFallSinCompassionVirtueDespairInfiniteDown AndRaisesDepthRefuseAccomplishIntellectHeightReachingOrthodoxRighteousnessInfinityRecallsRaise UpSpiritual Knowledge
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“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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“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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“Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.”

ThinkingShouldFirstsCountryLightSeemsChristianityVirtueDutySourceMoralityGoodnessJokesMirrorsFilledGuiltBusyGlimpseToo Busy
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
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“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

ThinkingMenWorldFirstsWholeUseEarthDesireFoundVirtueDemocracyModernExpressionAuthorityResourcesIdealsAimPursuitModern WorldTurning PointsNature Of Man
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“Nonsense prevails, modesty fails Grace and virtue turn into stupidity While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts They still think they're the gods of antiquity If something you missed didn't even exist It was just an ideal is it such a surprise?”

IfsThinkingStillsTurnsLeaderVirtueGraceFailingIdealsSurpriseStupidityCompromiseBeastNonsenseFadesModestyPaleAntiquityCalendarsBarricadesBacksides
Author:Elvis Costello
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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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“Many, and I think the determining, constitutive facts remain outside the reach of the operational concept. And by virtue of this limitation this methodological injunction against transitive concepts which might show the facts in their true light and call them by their true name the descriptive analysis of the facts blocks the apprehension of facts and becomes an element of the ideology that sustains the facts. Proclaiming the existing social reality as its own norm, this sociology fortifies in the individuals the "faithless faith" in the reality whose victims they are.”

ThinkingFactsShowsRealityLightMightNamesIndividualSocialVirtueElementsConceptsVictimBlockIdeologyLimitationAnalysisNormSociologyApprehensionProclaimingFaithless
Book:One dimensional man: studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society
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“Faith just doesn't have anything to do with what I'm doing as a scientist. It's nice if you can believe in God, because then you see more of a purpose in things. Even if you don't, though, it doesn't mean that there's no purpose. It doesn't mean that there's no goodness. I think that there's a virtue in being good in and of itself. I think that one can work with the world we have.”

IfsThinkingWorldBelieveMeanPurposeFaithVirtueNiceGoodnessScientistBe GoodBelieve In GodHave Faith
Author:Lisa Randall
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“Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.”

ThinkingMenLyingVirtueDutyGratitudeThousandTenGuidesPunishmentObligationOne ManVirtuousGiverApprehension
Book:The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With an Account of His Life and Writings : Stereotyped from the Paris Edition : Complete in One Volume
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“Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.”

ThinkingMayDifficultVirtueHeardHonestyPolicyIntegrityThousandHighestErrorsRewardsKnavery
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”

PeopleThinkingStatesWholeAmericaPoliticalHistoryVirtueAtheismHeroConceptsFolksBlowPositive AtheismPresidentialUsaSkepticismDiseasedIrreverence
Book:Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
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“Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character, our home, our birthplace, our native land. Think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of the feelings connected with these words, and if you have any intellectual eyes, you will then perceive the connection between topography and patriotism.”

IfsThinkingCharacterFeelingsHomeEyeIndividualVirtueLandIntellectualConnectionsConnectedAriseLocalsPerceiveNativeAttachmentNative LandBirthplaceTopographyBirth Place
Book:The Doctor, &c
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“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

ThinkingMenFirstsLongSaidReasonAbleLawEnergyAnimalBreakVirtueCivilizationConsequenceVicesAbsurdCrueltyBreastsCivilizedSentimentsBitesNurseToysSavagesInfantDepravityCanaries
Author:Marquis de Sade
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“We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves. When we see the martyr to virtue, subject as he is to the infirmities of a man, yet suffering the tortures of a demon, and bearing them with the magnanimity of a God, do we not behold a heroism that angels may indeed surpass, but which they cannot imitate, and must admire.”

ThinkingMenMaySufferingVirtueSubjectsHumilityAngelAdmireTortureDemonHeroismMartyrInfirmityMagnanimity
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky; The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry. To think, without desert of gentle deed And noble worth, to be advanced high, Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed, Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed.”

ThinkingMenDoeLightVirtueSkyWindFlowerBearsPraiseShameWingsBlowDeedsSeedsNobleDesertVainGentleGloriousHonourNobilityScornChivalryFlutteringKnighthood
Book:Books I and II of the Faerie queene: the mutability cantos, and selections from the minor poetry
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“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.”

ThinkingMenMayLittlesHas BeensPhilosophyPastForceGrowsVirtueMy FriendsGainsDignityBraverySensesRuinsAssociationIndifferentMarathonPietyEnviedFrigid
Author:Samuel Johnson
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“However long the horror continued, one must not get to the stage of refusing to think about it. To shrink from direct pain was bad enough, but to shrink from vicarious pain was the ultimate cowardice. And whereas to conceal direct pain was a virtue, to conceal vicarious pain was a sin. Only by feeling it to the utmost, and by expressing it, could the rest of the world help to heal the injury which had caused it. Money, food, clothing, shelter - people could give all these and still it would not be enough; it would not absolve them from paying also, in full, the imponderable tribute of grief.”

PeopleThinkingWorldGivingLongStillsEnoughHelpingFeelingsPainSinGriefVirtueStageHorrorEmpathyDirectUltimateHealInjuryClothingsCowardiceShelterShrinksTributeVicarious
Book:A pocketful of pebbles
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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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“The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous that others should think us still better than we think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve praise is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable, and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch at every confirmation.”

ThinkingKnowsShouldHumansHeartStillsActionPayVirtueBearsFameBenefitsDeservePraiseVanityProportionSuspectsDispositionTributePretensionSuffrageConfirmation
Book:The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler
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“Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, . . Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.”

ThinkingShouldMeanMatterStatesGovernmentFormFoundLostForgetPartyPrinciplesPracticeVirtueDemocracySightExtremesRuinsForms Of GovernmentPresent Day
Book:Politics
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“When I was in my early 20s I converted to Catholicism after a long period of searching. What I think drew me to the Catholic church is that in Catholicism, prayer suffuses all of one's life by virtue of the sacraments. Prayer is not something which occurs just on Sunday, it doesn't occur only at particular moments of intensity or by particular conventions, one's whole life is given up to prayer in many, many modes. And so everything to do with the faith is trying to put you in relationship with God and trying to make that relationship grow deeper and more mature.”

ThinkingTryingLongWholeMomentsLife IsGivenGrowsChurchPrayerVirtueParticularPeriodsCatholicDeeperWhole LifeSundayMatureCatholicismIntensityConventionsSacramentsGiven UpCatholic ChurchRelationship With GodEarly 20s
Author:Kevin Hart
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“Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it, for all that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness.”

ThinkingGivingShouldLooksWealthRoomsVirtueConditionsIgnoranceQuietFortunePrivilegeVicesRichesCirclesFreakFlatteryModeratesSuccessionHazardsCaprice
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
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“In most cases an act of unwelcome sex is no more bother than being vaccinated, so there's no point going on about it as if it werea fate worse than death. With skill and good manners you can avoid having to make the sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a compromising situation largely of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away.”

IfsThinkingGivingShouldSexSituationCasesWorryVirtueFateSacrificeSkillsAbuseCompromiseMannersBotherMaturityFinding YourselfGood ManSavagesBangsNo PointGood MannersUnwelcome
Author:Quentin Crisp
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“It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.”

ThinkingWellsKindMayMatterSeemsVirtueFlowerTypeMereObviousMeritCourageousPatrioticCrownsBiasDefectsCasualAristocracy
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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