Quotes About Virtue

I hope that my sons will live with honor in a world that is not afraid to use such a word and respect such a concept.

A vice in common can be the ground of a friendship but not a virtue in common. X and Y may be friends because they are both drunkards or womanizers but, if they are both sober and chaste, they are friends for some other reason.

Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.

Happiness is the possession of the excellence proper to us, and of the power subservient to it.

It appears to me that not only what is done by honourable and virtuous men in the serious transactions of life is worthy of record, but also what they do in their hours of amusement.

In whom the love of honor and praise is innate, are those who are elevated most above the brutes, and who are justly named men, and not merely human beings.

People often say what is right and do what is wrong; but nobody can be in the wrong if he is doing what is right.

A man may hate cruelty and lies, but if he's never given an opportunity to show what he's made of, no one will remember him when he dies.

I made my people understand the crucial difference between modesty and self-control. The modest person, I told them, will do nothing blameworthy in the light of day, but a true paragon of self-control—which we all should strive to be—avoids unworthy actions even in the deepest secrecy of his private life.

We ought to give good examples to our children, because if they see no uncomeliness, they shall be forced to follow goodness and virtue.

The coming of honor or disgrace must be a reflection of one's inner power.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.

You cannot change what's written in the stars. Liar! Later, much later, I would come to this realisation: nothing is written. If it were, there would be no need fo trials, morality would be an ageing hag and shame would not blush in the presence of vertue. Though there are things beyond our understaning, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.

Le bonheur n'est pas la récompense de la vertu. Il est la vertu elle-même. 

You cannot change what is written in the stars. Lies! Later, much later, I would come to this realisation: nothing is written. If it were, there would be no need for trials, morality would be an ageing hag and shame would not blush in the presence of virtue. Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.

Inner qualities, not outer appearances.

The great virtue of defeat, once accepted, is that it at least allows one to rest.

O Christ, Son of the Living God, May Your holy angels guard our sleep. May they watch over us as we rest And hover around our beds. . . . May no dreams disturb our rest And no nightmares darken our dreams. . . . May the virtue of our daily work Hallow our nightly prayers. May our sleep be deep and soft, So our work be fresh and hard. Amen. —PATRICK OF IRELAND (c. 387–c. 460)

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Though there is no evil in righteousness, there is in self-righteousness

It is an empty joy to appear better than you are; but a great blessing to be what you ought to be.

When doing the heroic thing, the right thing, conflicts with your personal power, and you choose the right thing over the personal power thing, you have begun to understand what Agape is. It's thankless, it's difficult, yet it's what the greatest songs are sung of.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it.