Quotes About Virtue

There are some sordid minds, formed of slime and filth, to whom interest and gain are what glory and virtue are to superior souls; they feel no other pleasure but to acquire money.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.

There are few virtuous women who are not tired of their part.

However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.

There are certain defects which, well-mounted, glitter like virtue itself.

Only great men have great faults.

A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.

Hypocrisy is the homage of vice to virtue.

We try to make a virtue of vices we are loath to correct.

To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.

There is only one misery . . . not to be saints.

Il n'y a qu'une tristesse, c'est de n'être pas des saints.

Existe una sola tristeza, la de no ser santos

Wherever God is adored, he is adored in virtue of a supernatural doctrine; wherever he is despised, he is despised in the name of nature and reason.

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.

Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers.

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

Never repent of your own goodness, child. To stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength.

Here is a great man, and also a good one, though few men are ever both.