Quotes About Virtue

We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits.

You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life.

And St. Francis said: 'My dear son, be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.

Anger is a perversion of courage, as lust is a perversion of love.

For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable.

All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone--for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good.

After you die, you wear what you are.

I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbours' defects--not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.

I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbors'defects--not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.

God Himself is the rule and mode of virtue. Our faith is measured by divine truth, our hope by the greatness of His power and faithful affection, our charity by His goodness. His truth, power and goodness outreach any measure of reason. We can certainly never believe, trust or love God more than, or even as much as, we should. Extravagance is impossible. Here is no virtuous moderation, no measurable mean; the more extreme our activity, the better we are.

The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them

Yet through virtuous living man is further ordained to a higher end, which consists in the enjoyment of God, as we have said above. Consequently, since society must have the same end as the individual man, it is not the ultimate end of an assembled multitude to live virtuously, but through virtuous living to attain to the possession of God.

A person is said to be patient…because he acts in a praiseworthy manner by enduring things which hurt him here and now and is not unduly saddened by them.

He had a clear conscience. Never used it.

Terrible es la venganza de aquel capricho del destino que tan rara vez desciende hasta los mortales, cuando cae injustamente en manos de quien no sabe hacer uso de él. Todas las virtudes burguesas, la prudencia, la obediencia, el empeño y la discreción se funden y se derriten impotentes ante las brasas de aquel gran momento del destino que solo reclama al genio y que forjará de él una imagen inmortal.

To be free of vanity or pride, these perhaps the gravest of all indulgences.

He makes it his task to be wholly sincere with himself, and he notes this definition of wisdom which he finds in Pindar: "True being is the beginning of a great virtue.

Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.

How sweet is success when the conditions leading it seem to bode ill," Stewart thought. "Such, in all modesty, is the reward of virtue." *

Such, in all modesty, is the reward of virtue.

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?

Great learning and superior abilities...will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.

But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken.