Quotes About Virtue

In my own lifetime I've seen the apotheosis of greed as a virtue, and brutal insensitivity become enlightened self interest. We may do as well as all but a few countries but that scarcely makes us a Christian nation except to those who bathe in patriotic gore out of habit and stupidity. Neither the emperor and consorts nor the citizenry is wearing the sacramental clothing it chooses to think it is wearing. A simple, private reading of the Gospels would tell them so.

his theory that all of the world's problems were caused by notions of ethnic virtue and that if marriages were limited to interracial lovers there would be peace on earth. There

Now there's a specific banality to rage as a reaction, an unearned sense of cleansing virtue.

Our favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted.

It is not, Ianthe, a priest's function to be a bottomless well of woolly uncritical forgiveness. That would only devalue virtue.

The problem was, you couldn't have one without the other. There couldn't be a bad guy unless there was a good guy to create the standard. And there couldn't be a good guy until a bad guy showed just how far off the path he might stray.

Happiness, honor, and great estate, For those who patiently work and wait.

Honest labor bears a lovely face.

Competition is such a virtue, and everybody's so busy competing, they have no time for compassion.

No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.

The reason why women grown bad are worse than men is because it is the best that turns to the worst.

When you do the right thing, it is not just for your own good, but for the betterment of the world.

I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

They say best men are molded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.

Good and bad men are less than they seem.

Being too bi...y will never make a girl look or sound beautiful, but being patient and mature does.

Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.

A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.

Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous.

Do what you know is right & importance, it is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, & personal satisfaction.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

Many have passed the rocks of gross sins - who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self-righteousness.