Quotes About Virtue

In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences.

In order to be good, you must recognize the difference between right and wrong and strive to choose the right. To be truly evil you must do the contrary. Being good or evil is a choice.

there were two kinds of men: strong men, who remained true to their internal compasses regardless of all else; and weak men who were easily misled and wound up cheating themselves of all they could be. He'd told Gabe he only wanted strong men

But to feel both innocent and superior because of my innocence doesn't seem terribly innocent.

Those who seek fame and glory are least qualified to possess it.

You have to be brave before you can be good.

Truthfulness is the main element of character.

Aristotelian

practice one virtue for a period of two weeks, then three weeks, then one virtue per month.

You are only as pretty as you are nice and smart.

I told you, in my last, that He sometimes permits bodily diseases to cure the distempers of the soul. Have courage then: make a virtue of necessity: ask of GOD, not deliverance from your pains, but strength to bear resolutely, for the love of Him, all that He should please, and as long as He shall please.

That many do not advance in the Christian progress because they stick in penances, and particular exercises, while they neglect the love of God, which is the end . That this appeared plainly by their works, and was the reason why we see so little solid virtue.

Pride, which we have called the root of vices, far from being satisfied with the extinction of one virtue, raises itself up against all the members of the soul, and as a universal and deadly disease corrupts the whole body.

It's not what a man does, it's what a man is that counts!

Then I ran to her and our relatives laughed. The knots of bystanders were horrified at the loss of her expensive tusk ornaments, but with my hand firmly clasped in hers she reminded them, with her face beaming,'When has it ever been a virtue to be rich in wealth and poor in people?' The relatives nodded. They understood her very well- why have heaven an earth when you have no one to share it with?

We come from a country that has made a fetish if not a virtue out of proving it can live without art: high, low, old, new, fat, lean, and particularly the rarely visible nocturnal art of poetry. We must do something with our time on this small aleatory sphere for motives other than money. Power is not an acceptable surrogate.

It is true that one should know the difference between good and evil, if one is to seek good and shun evil, but this knowledge should soak into every thought and influence every act in one's life. Then indeed knowledge becomes virtue.

No virtuous man is strong enough to live in virtue at all times, nor is any sinner bad enough to exist in one welter of sin. Life is a tangled web and there is no one in the world who has not done both good and evil. Each and everyone has to bear the consequence of his actions. Do not give way to sorrow.

knowledge, that is merely so much undigested information crammed into the mind, cannot instil virtue.

Funny, when i was a little boy I wanted to be good. But I could never seem to manage it somehow. And if you're not good, the good people will throw you to the wolves. So you might as well just be bad

I always say there's nothing wrong with a bit of vice as long as it's not taken to the extreme. Give me someone with a touch of vice over someone with an excess of sanctimonious hypocrisy any day.

He made an honest woman of me. It's a curious expression, don't you agree? An 'honest woman' is a very different creature from an 'honest man' and has nothing to do with the truth or lack thereof. Just as a woman's honor is a very different thing from a man's. It's as if when it comes to women, all possible virtues—honesty, honor, even virtue itself—are reduced simply to whom we allow between our legs.

Keeping an open mind is a virtue—but, as the space engineer James Oberg once said, not so open that your brains fall out.

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.