Quotes About Virtue

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

The good is the beautiful.

And this which you deem of no moment is the very highest of all: that is whether you have a right idea of the gods, whereby you may live your life well or ill.

A man ought not to return evil for evil, as many think, since at no time ought we to do an injury to our neighbour.*

Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.N.B. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. See also Napoleon Bonaparte.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

You should not honor men more than truth.

His only fault is that he has no fault.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.

Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive, of our actions; and although it happen not to attend the worthy deed, yet it is by no means the less fair for having missed the applause it deserved.

Peccant, qvia nihil peccant.

Não ignoro que muitos outros não olham estas espécies de desgraças senão como uma simples perda de um bem, e que assim pensando eles se julgam grandes homens e homens sábios. De minha parte, não sei se são tão grandes e tão sábios como o imaginam, mas sei bem que não são homens.

Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.

Poverty is not dishonourable in itself, but only when it arises from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.

The man who is completely wise and virtuous has no need of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his way to action by the greater trust that it procures him.

Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy.

For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people.

For though all persons are equally subject to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage she cannot deny, which is this, to act reasonably under misfortunes.