Quotes About Virtue

Appreciation of beauty is a strength that connects someone directly to excellence. Gratitude connects someone directly to goodness.

People are responsible for their actions, but not the fruits of their actions. Always do what you think is right, but don't worry if good does not always come from what you do.

Heroes made lousy partners in business and in love. The courage to face death was not always a virtue. It could be the ultimate cop-out. If she died in a noble cause, she didn't have to face the boredom of day-to-day existence.

Prudence is a bourgeois virtue, because the rich have something worth saving. The poor splurge because they need desperately to make a colorful splash across the drab fabric of their lives. The hungry don't dream of brown rice and vegetables; they dream of cake.

Bad has a big mouth, that's why it gets all the attention. But don't be fooled, he told them. Good doesn't need to brag. Good knows it's stronger.

Honor is an overvalued commodity.

The best of all lost arts is honesty

Once upon a time there were mass media, and they were wicked, of course, and there was a guilty party. Then there were the virtuous voices that accused the criminals. And Art (ah, what luck!) offered alternatives, for those who were not prisoners to the mass media. Well, it's all over. We have to start again from the beginning, asking one another what's going on.

But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.

In other words, although I don't like them, we do need noble-spirited souls.

Ahora bien, aun siendo estos casos virtuosos, como nos recuerda Brecht, también el odio hacia la injusticia desencaja el rostro.

E' virtù sopra la virtù dissimulare la virtù.

So must we then read books without faith, which is a theological virtue?" "There are two other theological virtues as well. The hope that the possible is. And charity, toward those who believed in good faith that the possible was.

The crusades were carried out in virtuous bad faith.

Maar het is me vaak gebeurd dat ik de verleidelijkste voorstellingen van de zonde juist aantrof in de geschriften van die mannen van onkreukbare deugdzaamheid, die de bekoring en de invloeden ervan veroordeelden. Teken dat zij worden gedreven door een zodanige ijver om van de waarheid te getuigen dat zij, uit liefde voor God, niet aarzelen aan het kwaad alle verlokkingen toe te schrijven waarin het zich hult, om de mensen beter in kennis te stellen van de manieren waarop de Boze hen bekoort.

And in that city Ferrante's rise began, at the outer edge of the Spanish court, where he learned that the virtue of sovereigns is their caprice, and Power is an insatiable monster, to be served with slavish devotion in order to snatch every crumb falling from that table.

when the soul is transported, the only virtue lies in loving what you see (is that not true?), the supreme happiness in having what you have;

There is something in us all, he said, that is greater than ourselves, that works through us and can be used in the making of character. The central core of life is personality. To respect the personality of others is the beginning of virtue, and to enforce respect for it is the first duty of the individual toward all forms of government, all organizations and systems which men contrive to enslave and limit their fellows.

In all this world, I pray thee, who Is virtuous, heroic, true?

trained in arts and versed in law; High-souled

I discovered that the world should be divided not into good and bad people but into cowards and non-cowards. Ninety-five percent of cowards are capable of the vilest things, lethal things, at the mildest threat.

Informers and stool pigeons are full of virtue, they should all be released and sent home—but how vile they are! Vile for all their virtues, vile even with all their sins absolved...Who was it who made that cruel joke about the proud sound made by the word "Man"?

Dinah and I were raised to believe money taints ordinary people, obstructs virtue, and makes a fool out of you. So, the inheritance was like a tiger somebody'd left on the doorstep of my house, and I had to figure out something to do with it. Having never seen a tiger up close, I perceived it as strange, frightful, and yet it pricked my curiosity enough to warrant a peek at its big body. But what to do with it?

Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.