Quotes About Virtue

What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the circumstances. What is the best thing to do under the circumstances? That which will increase the sum of human happiness—or lessen it the least. Happiness in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral—that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral.

where there's no capacity for joy, there's no capacity for goodness.

One t'ing life's taught me: where there's no capacity for joy, there's no capacity for goodness,

Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.

Here lies the characteristic paradox of good and evil: for action, in terms of practical effects, is superior to inaction, and the congenitally active evil an can frequently win advantage over the sometimes inactive good. Indeed, the fundamentally stable and restful spirit of goodness is a lure to evil inspirations, an encouragement to villains who are aware that, in the moral and political chess game, they have the white pieces and the first move.

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.

War is nothing less than a temporary repeal of the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are included.

Any man who is truly worthy must consider himself unworthy.

No one who ever follows their conscience ever does wrong. The consequences may not turn out as we intended; it may prove that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong.

Against diseases here the strongest fence Is the defensive vertue, abstinence.

Robin felt a strange thrill of glory at the thought that he bore with him, in virtue of his priesthood only, so much consolation. He faces for the the first time that tremendous call of which he had heard so much in Rheims- that desolate cry of souls that longed and longed in vain for those gifts of which a priest of Christ could alone bestow...

Virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in believing but in doing. Collected works volume 1

Ayn Rand offered perhaps the most rational solution for dealing with slanderers when she said, "Freedom comes from seeing the ignorance of your critics and discovering the emptiness of their virtue.

Honor does not have to be defended.

Don't worry. Don't worry. The Devil does none of these things. He neither smokes nor drinks nor engages in revelry, and yet he is The Devil. --Father Vasiliev, confessor to the Russian Imperial Family

A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior.

virtue-signalling is all about boasting,' reported Phillips. 'It flaunts the signaller's credentials as a morally virtuous person. It screams, "Me! Me! Me!

Simplicity, like all virtues, is valuable because it is useful. I have come to understand that making life simpler does for our minds what getting in shape does for our bodies. It makes us feel more in control, more centered, more effective. And as with getting into shape, you have to want it sincerely, and you have to work at it consciously every day.

And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good— Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

4And patience produces character, and character produces hope. 5And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love

A boy is a man in miniature, and though he may sometimes exhibit notable virtue, as well as characteristics that seem to be charming because they are childlike, he is also a schemer, self-seeker, traitor, Judas, crook, and villain - in short, a man.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it

Act with integrity.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as to think.