Quotes About Virtue

Human beings had been created with a free will that made them choose to be one of the good guys or one of the bad guys. These days, unfortunately, more and more people seemed to be taking the low road.

There aren't many good things don't have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Wisdom or accident, at length, recall us from our error, and offers to us some object capable of producing a pleasing, yet lasting effect, which effect, therefore, we call happiness. Happiness has this essential difference from what is commonly called pleasure, that virtue forms its basis, and virtue being the offspring of reason, may be expected to produce uniformity of effect.

Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love. How then are we to look for love in great cities, where selfishness, dissipation, and insincerity supply the place of tenderness, simplicity and truth?

And is it possible,' said Emily, as these recollections returned—'is it possible, that a mind, so susceptible of whatever is grand and beautiful, could stoop to low pursuits, and be subdued by frivolous temptations?

We learn, also, that those who do only THAT WHICH IS RIGHT, endure nothing in misfortune but a trial of their virtue, and from trials well endured derive the surest claim to the protection of heaven.

Though splendour may grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it.

I will defend the oppressed, and glory in the virtue, which teaches me, that it is the first duty of humanity to do so. Yes, my Lord, if it must be so, I am ready to sacrifice inferior duties to the grandeur of a principle, which ought to expand all hearts and impel all actions. I shall best support the honour of my house by adhering to its dictates.

There can be no degradation, my Lord, where there is no vice," replied Vivaldi; "and there are instances, pardon me, my Lord, there are some few instances in which it is virtuous to disobey.

A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.

The world,' said he, pursuing this train of thought, 'ridicules a passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence. Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.

I find American girls have a spirit and honesty about them that is most refreshing.

I look forward to leaving here in a week with both pride and virtue intact." "And I look forward to nights of untold rapture in your arms, my dear Miss Forsythe.

For they do not look through to the soul, nor have a keen eye for virtue, but they stop at the outward excellencies of the body, and admire daring, and strength, speed in running, and size, and consider these as fit qualifications for the purple robe and diadem.

It is good people who make good places.

If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.

The greatest virtue consists in flourishing to the greatest of our capacities.

Sin and shame ever go together; he that would be freed from the last must be sure to shun the company of the first.

I wonder if there might not be another idea of human order than repression, another notion of human virtue than self-control, another kind of human self than one based on dissociation of inside and outside. Or indeed, another human essence than self.

Winter noon is on the rise. Weak suns yet alive are as virtue to suns of that other day. For the poor town dreams of surrender, mother never untender, mother gallant and gay.

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

perhaps great sins start as simple weakness, and the consistent placing of self before others.

A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined.