Quotes About Virtue

Socrates had just smiled and shook his head. To break the law, he told Crito, even a law that he knew was unjust, would be wrong. As he told his disciples many times, "one must not do wrong even when one is wronged."3 By doing wrong, a man did injury to his soul. Doing right, by contrast, makes his soul healthy and strong. A life of virtue is a life without compromise, Socrates believed, in which the goal is perfection according to an eternal standard.

The philosophy wars in Athens between 300 and 200 BCE weary readers and scholars alike. What matters here is that they knocked mathematics and science out from the pride of place they had occupied in Plato's Academy. Plato had wanted all his students to be master mathematicians and astronomers, as well as exemplars of virtue, especially since he believed knowledge of the one pointed the way to understanding of the other.

Aristotle insisted, the source of that justice is always the same: observation of the underlying order of nature.

Liberty included an equality before the law, since all men are equal before God; and it included a generosity of spirit and independence of mind that Aristotle had recognized as the hallmark of the virtuous man and which Locke saw would prevent a state of normal liberty from degenerating into a "state of license"—in other words, a perpetual riot.

Aristotle's theory of the mean seems simple-minded; or to quote Bertrand Russell again, common sense pedantically expressed. However, if we change the word mean to proportion, we get closer to what Aristotle must have meant—and large parts of his Ethics as well as his Politics make more sense. The mean represents not so much a literal middle point as striking a balance between conflicting impulses and choices, and seeing our way through to the other side.

How does he learn to take that crucial step? Does he learn it the hard way, that if he is going to get along he has to go along, as Pufendorf suggested? Or is there a simpler, more uplifting way, by which we learn that virtue can be its own reward?

silence is not weakness and decency is not pride

How strangely distributed are our scruples. When they are evenly spread across our lives, we are judged good people. Mine, unfortunately, tend to bunch up.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.

The development of wickedness is one thing; the presence of any measure of holiness or virtue is another.

Because one stage of depravity is lower than another, this does not warrant the denial that the first stage is degraded. The development of wickedness is one thing; the presence of any measure of holiness or virtue is another. The absence of certain forms of sins does not imply any innate purity. It might as well be affirmed that a recent corpse, which is less loathsome, is therefore less dead than one which is far gone in decay and putrefaction.

God is just and good, and ever does that which is right.

algunos preferimos, supongo, los vicios que nos divierten a las virtudes que nos aburren.

El seductor no lo es sino para la que quiere ser seducida, y la verdadera virtud puede conservarse intacta entre todo lo demás. El amor es ligero, volátil, y se esfuma con el aburrimiento... ¿Comprende lo que quiero decir?

Hay cosas que no se pueden eludir, Corso. Hay castillos que deben arder y hombres que ahorcar; perros destinados a despedazarse entre sí, virtudes que decapitar, puertas que se han de abrir para que otros pasen por ellas...

Heroes, however, have a habit of ending up dead or bankrupt, and, as you know better than anyone, I have much to lose. At my age and in my profession, prudence is more than just a virtue, it's an instinct.

Hay héroes tanto en el mal como en el bien. La Rochefoucauld, Máximas

En el fondo —dice—, a una mujer de mundo le gusta saber que hay hombres superiores a otros, más audaces y elegantes, que no defraudarán su vanidad, no se detendrán ante su pretendida virtud, y tomarán la iniciativa usando, incluso, la violencia adecuada que sirva de excusa a la mujer... ¿Me explico?

All the good works gathered in a thousand ages, Such as deeds of generosity, And offerings to the Blissful Ones— A single flash of anger shatters them.

But if my acts are good, sincerely intended, Then no matter where I turn my steps, The merit gained will honor me With its resulting benefits.

Just as on a dark night black with clouds, The sudden lightning glares and all is clearly shown, Likewise rarely, through the Buddhas' power, Virtuous thoughts rise, brief and transient, in the world.

Grace is when your kindness and your character are radiant through your action