Quotes About Virtue

it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.

Albany had declared that "All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deservings" (24.297–99).

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.

that the simplest and easiest of virtues, Kindness, can offer all of us not only a Way through the imbroglio, but a Destination too.

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that Ethics is but another word for righteousness, that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless.

Yet in moments of industrial stress and strain the community is confronted by a moral perplexity which may arise from the mere fact that the good of yesterday is opposed to the good of today, and that which may appear as a choice between virtue and vice is really but a choice between virtue and virtue. In the disorder and confusion sometimes incident to growth and progress, the community may be unable to see anything but the unlovely struggle itself.

It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless.

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

faultless in spite of all her faults...

General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be.

I think him every thing that is worthy and amiable.

We do not look in great cities for our best morality.

The loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable - that one false step involves in her endless ruin - that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful - and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the opposite sex.

That loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable-- that one false step involves her in endless ruin-- that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful-- and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the opposite sex. ~Mary Bennett, P&P

Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.  —Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves.

Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.

Sí; la vanidad es, en efecto, una debilidad. Pero en cuanto al orgullo, donde se dé verdadera superioridad de espíritu, estará siempre justificado.

You might not see one in a hundred with gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley.