Quotes About Virtue

Difficult, say you? Difficult to be a man of virtue, truly good, shaped and fashioned without flaw in the perfect figure of four-squared excellence, in body and mind, in act and thought?

May I consider the wise man rich, and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure.

The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.

Nothing more surely cultivates and embellishes a man than association with refined and virtuous women.

I do not hate a proud man, as I do hate the engendering of toads.

O heaven! were man, But constant, he were perfect.

Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, Manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man

The noble person uses things; the lesser man is used by things.

The just man having a firm grasp of his intentions, neither the heated passions of his fellow men ordaining something awful, nor a tyrant staring him in the face, will shake in his convictions.

Ten men have failed from defect in morals, where one has failed from defect in intellect.

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.

The Wise Man is square but not sharp, honest but not not malign, straight but not severe, bright but not dazzling.

Clever talk and domineering manner have little to with being a Man at His Best.

Without goodness a man cannot endure adversity for long, nor can he enjoy prosperity for long. The good man is naturally at ease with goodness. The wise man cultivates goodness for its advantage.

The gentleman is calm and at ease. The gentleman is dignified but not proud; the small man is proud but not dignified.

There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth ... lust. When he is strong ... quarrelsomeness. When he is old ... covetousness.

The end of the day is near when small men make long shadows.

When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your own heart.

The gentleman sees what is right while the small man sees what is profitable.

The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does.

The superior man * * * in regard to his speech * * * is anxious that it should be sincere.

It is the wise man's part to leave in darkness everything that is ugly.

When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly.

The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my most ungrudging love; and the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me.