Quotes About Virtue

Those whom he kept for a month became his friends for life. They did not call themselves friends; they did not praise him to outsiders; they did not talk about him. They knew only, in a dim way, that it was not loyalty to him, but to the best within themselves.

God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit. A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out.

Furthermore, loyalty to the point of self-sacrifice to one's kin-culture group in a life-and-death conflict with other groups was part and parcel of morality in ancestral human societies, for obvious reasons, and it is still widely regarded as a virtue. For this reason, authorized killing for one's country in war is starkly distinguished morally from unathorized killing, known as murder.

We had always segregated sex from feeling and from intellectual love, so you were either pure and virtuous, as Nassrin's uncle had said, or dirty and fun. What was alien to us was eros, true sensuality.

Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.

Integrity isn't something you have in some parts of your life and not in others. You either have it, or you don't.

Morality is not a large, constructed *thing* you have or have not, but simply a capacity. Something you carry with you in your brain and in your hands.

Like Daniel she enteres the lions' den, but lacking Daniel's pure and unblemished soul, Ada is spiced with the flavors of vice that make for a tasty meal. Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow.

If God speaks for the man who keeps quiet, then Violet Brown may be His instrument.

Aren't you going to invite me in? No. You aren't very polite. That is a virtue I am seldom accused of possessing. Don't sulk, Cousin, it spoils the shape of that charming mouth.

Practical wisdom, Aristotle told us, is the combination of moral will and moral skill.

the truth that people should prefer to suffer injustice than commit it, that they should actually be good instead of simply seeming to be.

The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement." —Aristotle, from The Nicomachean Ethics

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle said, "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way . . . you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

Physical strength is never what makes a man manly. Rather, it is moral strength that identifies the true man

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way . . . you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

It is character that communicates most eloquently.

It is character that communicates most eloquently...In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They're fundamental.

Only basic goodness gives life to technique.

Many people with secondary greatness—that is, social recognition for their talents—lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you'll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently.

Many people with secondary greatness - that is, social recognition for their talents - lack primary greatness of goodness in their character

What you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based… never compromise with honesty