Quotes About Virtue

The remedy against the Sin of Pride. Now since it is so that you have understood what is Pride, and which are the kinds of it, and from whence Pride arises and springs, you shall understand what is the remedy against the Sin of Pride, and that is humility, or meekness. That is a virtue through which a man has true knowledge of himself, and holds himself to be of no import or esteem, considering always his frailty.

When the instincts to virtue signal are combined with curiosity about science, open-mindedness about values and viewpoints, rationality about priorities and policies, and strategic savvy about ways and means, then wonderful things can happen.

Just as we often say of virtue that the greatest witness for its reality is the semblance that hypocrisy borrows from it, so Intellect cannot keep Reason off.

Aufklärung des Verstands macht zwar klüger, aber nicht besser.

Being good and sweet in this life is enough to attract evil

at the basis of every virtue is our power to break its hold

The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

There are no perfectly honorable men; but every true man has one main point of honor and a few minor ones.

Morality can go to its father the devil.

You came clothed with the virtue of humility; and because God blessed your enterprises accordingly, you have stained yourself with the sin of pride.

Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

The real slavery of to-day is slavery to ideals of virtue.

Eines der traurigsten Dinge im Leben ist, dass ein Mensch viele gute Taten tun muss, um zu beweisen, dass er tüchtig ist, aber nur einen Fehler zu begehen braucht, um zu beweisen, dass er nichts taugt.

What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?

His faith wavered, but not his speech: it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of yesterday's faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow.

To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action of concession on his behalf. That is a sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue [...]

Indeed we are most of us brought up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is something irrespective of the beings who would suffer the wrong.

It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the breathing-medium of all our joy—who brings to us with close pressure and immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and his opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our virtue in the making.

Modesty, not temper.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty;