Quotes About Virtue

Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it today because it is not of today.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well - he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

The divine bards are the friends of my virtue, of my intellect, of my strength. They admonish me that the gleams which flash across my mind are not mine, but God's; they had the like, and were not disobedient to the heavenly vision

You would compliment a coxcomb doing a good act, but you would not praise an angel.

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.

Why all this deference to Alfred, and Scanderbeg, and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue?

Tis not important how the hero does this or this, but what he is. What he is will appear in every gesture and syllable. In this way the moment and the character are one.

A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character.

for the hand can never execute any thing higher than the character can inspire.

Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.

Transcendentalists have been accused of being rebels and rule-breakers. But if they disregard society's customs and laws, it's because they're listening to conscience and obeying the Law Maker within. There are situations where virtue asks us to break the rules.

Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons. Samuel Johnson The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhat made useful to him. ...Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults...

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs . . . Whoso would be a man must also be a non-conformist.

In a virtuous community, men of sense and of principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals, men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay our hands on our own hearts and say 'Here is the sin that makes the public sin'.

whatever instances can be quoted of unpunished theft, or of a lie which somebody credited, justice must prevail, and it is the privilege of truth to make itself believed.

A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text.

It has been said, that "common souls pay with what they do; nobler souls with that which they are.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

The advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both speculative and practical, that is, philosophy and virtue, take. For, seen in the light of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind.