Quotes About Virtue

The man who spends all his time looking up to heaven is not always the best; in fact, he is usually the worst.

Nothing lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals.

We ought at all times to be very careful that high-mindedness shall never have place in our hearts.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Always do the right and be the right, Whatever the circumstances.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.

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

A gentleman makes friends by learning together with others, and he looks to friends to help him cultivate benevolence.

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

She saved herself from endless heartache. . . . She probably spent a cold and lonely old age wishing she had a little pleasure to look back upon . . . Prim virtue can be a cold bedfellow.

Spoke again,and this time he understood, Someone's father once her that it was better to die than to live wrongly. I say: better to live rightly

And I entreat her who shall be in office, that she strive to precede the other Sisters more by virtue and holy behavior, than by her office, so that, touched by her example, they obey her, not so much from a sense of duty, as from love.

For mere authority as such never takes hold of our hearts, but virtue and holy lovableness do. We are directed in the ways of obedience by a lawful superior. We are led by a lovable one.

I was only precocious mentally and lived in deadly fear of losing my virtue, not for moral reasons, but from the dread of being thought "easy.

As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail: it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold, in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas, ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

Our hands, or minds, our feet hold more intelligence. With this I have no quarrel. But, what about virtue?

If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.

Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm.

Era el hombre, efectivamente, tan poderoso, tan virtuoso y magnífico, y no obstante tan depravado y tan bajo? Unas veces parecía un mero vástago del principio del mal; otras,lo más noble y divino que cabe imaginar.

Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so viscious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived as noble and godlike.

My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.

I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans—of their subsequent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.

Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?

Yo era bueno y cariñoso; el sufrimiento me ha envilecido. Concededme la felicidad, y volveré a ser virtuoso.