Quotes About Virtue

A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

goodness—what defines a good person. Keep to it in everything you do.

The pride which is proud of want of pride is the most intolerable of all.

Attend to the matter before you, whether it is an opinion or an act or a word. You suffer this justly: for you choose rather to become good tomorrow than to be good today.

Use the setback to practice other virtues.

Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment if you keep digging.

If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it. For let your impulse be in your own power.

And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can't even meet their own standards.

Even when the gods stood on the side of righteousness, they were concerned with the act more than with the intent.

Anywhere you can lead your life, you can lead a good one.

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to bear this constantly in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.

It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.

As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.

For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good, when by it thou art hindered from some other better work.

To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.

To the best of my judgment, when I look at the human character I see no virtue placed there to counter justice. But I see one to counter pleasure: self-control.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

How cruel it is not to allow a man to strive after the things which appear to them to be suitable to their nature and profitable! And yet in a manner thou dost not allow them to do this, when thou art vexed because they do wrong. For they are certainly moved towards things because they suppose them to be suitable to their nature and profitable to them - But it is not so - Teach them, then, and show them without being angry.

If it doesn't harm your character, how can it harm your life?

How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavour to flee from another's, which is not.

The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling principle makes all things work together for good, but for the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature. In the individual it is virtue alone which enables him to do this; as Providence rules the universe, so virtue in the soul must rule man.

in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found.

A better wrestler. But not a better citizen, a better person, a better resource in tight places, a better forgiver of faults.