Quotes About Virtue

In this way, Allah will love the pious person because He, the Most Exalted, loves those who are pious, truthful, charitable, devout, and are sincere to Him and to His Prophet.

è una ragazza virtuosa, sensata, intelligente, d'ottima educazione; una figlia devota e una perfetta padrona di casa. Solo, ogni tanto, soffre di tremendi attacchi di malinconia, di cui nessuno è mai riuscito a spiegare l'origine. Perciò vi raccomando: non meravigliatevi se improvvisamente, senza motivo, la vedete scoppiare in lacrime. Non è colpa vostra, e lei non ce l'ha con voi. Però è meglio che le giriate alla larga finché non le passa.

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do.

HOBBES: Virtue needs some cheaper thrills.

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.

I do not admire the excess of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. Otherwise it is not rising to the heights but falling down. We show greatness, not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.

I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.

Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.

For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.

to think well; this is the principle of morality.

The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.

Noble deeds are most estimable when hidden.

The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself.

The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

11 All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it.

Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice.

Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54)

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Il faut qu'on n'en puisse (dire), ni il est mathématicien, ni prédicateur, ni éloquent mais il est honnête homme. Cette qualité universelle me plaît seule.

Man is neither angel nor devil, and his tragedy is that he who tries too hard to play the first too often ends up as the second.

Comme on se gâte l'esprit, on se gâte aussi le sentiment.

We do not sustain ourselves in virtue by our own strength, but by the balancing of two opposed vices, just as we remain upright amidst two contrary gales. Remove one of the vices, and we fall into the other.