Quotes About Virtue

My lot is that I must be the first decent human being

The love of those who have not learned to stand solitude, or who "invite a witness when [they] wish to speak well of" themselves is not a virtue but simply a weakness; nor do they profit their neighbors.

My father once told me that a great man walks the back roads. He does what's right every day and no one knows it but those lucky enough to be loved by him.

I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake.

It is by giving fair names to foul actions that those who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons, under the disguise of virtue.

If thou readest the Scripture, said the Jewess, and the lives of the saints, only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most healthful and necessary herbs.

The readiest mode to corrupt a Christian man is to bestow upon vice the pity and the praise which are due only to virtue. Your Baron of Roussillon is a monster of cruelty; but your unfortunate lovers were not the less guilty. It is by giving fair names to foul actions that those who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons, under the disguise of virtue.

A truly good man is not aware of his goodness and is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good and is therefore not good.

Cultivated in the self, virtue is realized;

cultivate a style of leadership that creates "a good store of virtue

Gather as much virtue as you possibly can.

practice living without limits by gathering virtue and modeling it.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time...of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here...It is in the world, but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

Akin to the idea that time is money is the concept, less spoken but as commonly assumed, that we may be adequately represented by money. The giving of money has thus become our characteristic virtue. But to give is not to do. The money is given in lieu of action, thought, care, time.

The meritorious ground of justification is not faith; we are not justified on account of our faith, considered as a virtuous holy act or state of mind. Nor are our works of any kind the ground of justification. Nothing done by us or wrought in us satisfies the demands of justice, or can be the ground or reason of the declaration that justice as far as it concerns us is satisfied. The ground of justification is the righteousness of Christ.

When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him.

Aelred writes that true Christian friendship begins with two people who are drawn to some quality of holiness or virtue they see in each other. Since both persons love Jesus Christ and want to build their friendship on their love of Christ, Jesus is, in a real sense, the third person in their friendship.

The good life, the life that brings real happiness, consists in conforming ourselves to our nature and realizing its inherent potential. It's not enough to get what we desire; we must learn to desire well. We do that by cultivating excellence in moral virtue and judgment, in our intellects, and in our unique skills.

To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue.

To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.

There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song.

IN DEFENSE OF THE F-WORD I am sure there is a special place in heaven reserved for those who have never used the F-word. I will never get near that place.