Quotes About Virtue

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

It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.

Quality is not an act. It is a habit.

If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself.

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than to our strength.

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.

He is lifeless that is faultless.

His only fault is that he has no fault.

Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.

There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.

What is the test of good manners? Being able to bear patiently with bad ones.

George Edward Herbert

Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.

As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise."

None can pray well but he that lives well.

Praying which does not result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole office and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in the very nature of things that we must quit praying, or quit bad conduct.

Pride, perceiving humility honourable, often borrows her cloak.

If principle is good for anything, it is worth living up to.

Reform must come from within, not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.

All reform except a moral one will prove unavailing.

Let them know a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Two wrongs can never make a right.