Quotes About Virtue

In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. —C. S. LEWIS, The Abolition of Man

when we fail to be kind and loving, then we fail to be wise.

There is, in fact, a primary driving force behind women's reluctance to see their ambition as a virtue.

Rendre la vertu aimable, le vice odieux, le ridicule saillant. Voilà le projet de tout homme qui prend la plume, le pinceau et le ciseau.

Niczego równie trudno nie przebacza siÄ™ komuÅ›, co jego zalet.

c'est la magie de la constance, la plus difficile et la plus rare de nos vertus.

Goal 7: That each child grow up free from highly damaging sin

There are far more kind and honest people than there are courageous people.

While individual human beings do enormous good, mankind has always been morally unimpressive.

While a pure mind may be a saintly ideal, for the rest of us mortals controlling our behavior is an enormous enough achievement.

Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society can not survive if it calls immoral things moral.

Happiness is a moral obligation.

The most important thing to understand when it comes to our baser parts is not only how normal and natural it is to have them but that there is nothing wrong in having them. Bad is doing bad, not thinking bad (there are exceptions—see the next chapter), and it is certainly not merely having bad tendencies.

The fact that someone is seen as being punished by God should not be an excuse for not practicing virtue towards that person, but quite the contrary. Even in an ordinary learning situation, we all make mistakes which cause us problems, but we often equally help one another through such difficulties, rather than blame one another.

Those who flaunt themselves are not clear Those who presume themselves are not distinguished Those who praise themselves have no merit Those who boast about themselves do not last

Through eons of living in a land so poor there was little to eat but oats, they had as usual converted necessity into a virtue, and insisted that they liked the stuff.

In defense of King, country, and family, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his virtue to Nessie, had that been required. If it was a question of Olivia marrying a man with syphilis and half the British army being exterminated in battle, versus himself experiencing a personal interview with Richard Caswell, though, he rather thought Olivia and the King had best look to their own devices.

You underestimate your own merits, John—as always. Of course, nothing becomes manly virtue more than simple modesty.

I don't need to use bad language as a means of earning or for entertainment.

My shows are basically about ethics.

Absolute truthfulness, and conscience as its manifestation, are within everybody. Acknowledging it is wisdom, and living it is virtue.

Although it can hurt to experience painful relationships with others, it is through these struggles that we grow more rapidly. By reflecting on those relationships, we can observe our habits and motivations, both positive and negative. We can set clear goals about the kind of person we want to be and slowly work to change our habits, and our relationships as a result. In this process, we develop a virtuous character that acts harmoniously with others.

La cultura nos hará libres para evitar la superstición con la que pretenden envolver nuestra vida los curas y los frailes y, sobre todo, para educar a nuestros hijos en la virtud, en la libertad, en la igualdad y en la fraternidad…

It implies also that there was a souring of "the earth's sweet being in the beginning." Long ago there occurred a besmirching of primordial innocence that has turned the history of human life and the practice of virtue into a project of restoration rather than one of joining ourselves to a universe that is still becoming more.