Quotes About Virtue

No speech can stain what is noble by nature.

For God hates utterly The bray of bragging tongues.

Manuals of wisdom literature were taught to children and contained all the essentials for being a valued member of the community, including ethics and manners. This idea of virtuous behaviour equated to 'upholding Ma'at', and everyone in society, from the lowest peasant to the Pharaoh to the gods needed to uphold Ma'at to preserve order and harmony, and prevent chaos.

A good inclination is but the first rude draught of virtue, but the finishing strokes are from the will, which, if well disposed, will by degrees perfect it, as if all disposed will quickly deface it.

Were there but one virtuous man in the world, he would hold up his head with confidence and honor; he would shame the world, and not the world him.

We would all be well advised to avoid the motivation to the evil thought. If persistently resisted it will "get the message" and stay away.

What message may I take from you to the young people in Zion?" The answer was quick and positive. "Tell them," said the doomed man, "to keep their lives so full of good works that there will be no room for evil.

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection.

Sexual desire and anger shall not seduce you, and the dog of greed shall depart.

There is some virtue to be learnt from every part of the world — teamwork from Japan, precision from Germany, marketing and negotiation skills from the United States, courtesy, decency and refinement from the British, and human values from the villages of India. You

The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

But however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which without true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of the true God.

Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.

The meek are those who yield to acts of wickedness, and do not resist evil, but overcome evil with good.

They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it could be a goddess, had been preferable to many. And now, because it is not a goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained by prayer from Him, by whom alone it can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods vanishes.

What can suffice the man whom virtue and felicity do not suffice? For surely virtue comprehends all things we need do, felicity all things we need wish for.

Why, therefore, except through foolishness and miserable error, shouldst thou humble thyself to worship a being to whom thou desirest to be unlike in thy life? And why shouldst thou pay religious homage to him whom thou art unwilling to imitate, when it is the highest duty of religion to imitate Him whom thou worshippest?

But if the want of those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed!

Nevertheless, faithfully interrogate your own souls, whether ye have not been unduly puffed up by your integrity, and continence, and chastity; and whether ye have not been so desirous of the human praise that is accorded to these virtues, that ye have envied some who possessed them.

For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion.

For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name "evil."

Sound judgment is to be preferred even to examples, and indeed examples harmonize with the voice of reason; but not all examples, but those only which are distinguished by their piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation.

Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave.