Quotes About Virtues

They had caught a glimpse of themselves in a mirror, a mirror placed at a turning point where they had expected to see daylight and freedom, and though each of them, individually, was far from believing himself perfect, all had counted on the virtues of others to rescue them themselves.

a man may shout the eternal virtues and be unheard forever, but if he babble nonsense in a wilderness it will travel around the world.

Mis vicios sólo son el fruto de tan forzosa y aborrecida soledad. Mis virtudes, por el contrario, se desarrollarán naturalmente cuando tenga a mi lado el afecto de otra criatura. Los sentimientos cariñosos de mi compañera me transformarán y, así, podré incorporarme al hermoso ciclo universal del que ahora estoy tan cruelmente excluido.

I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues, they would compassionate me, and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship?

Aprendí que las virtudes más apreciadas por mis semejantes eran el rancio abolengo acompañado de riquezas. El hombre que poseía sólo una de estas cualidades podía ser respetado; pero si carecía de ambas se le consideraba, salvo raras excepciones, como a un vagabundo, un esclavo destinado a malgastar sus fuerzas en provecho de los pocos elegidos.

persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues, they would compassionate me, and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship?

Our virtues are the quicksands, which show themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability, finds them sink from under him.

Whatever (its) virtues, (the) writing explores the culture of work but marginalizes work itself.

Such was the code that the world had accepted and such was the key to the code: that it hooked man's love of existence to a circuit of torture, so that only the man who had nothing to offer would have nothing to fear, so that the virtues which made life possible and the values which gave it meaning became the agents of its destruction, so that one's best became the tool of one's agony, and man's life on earth became impractical.

Men differ in their virtues, if any," said Gail Wynand, explaining his policy, "but they are alike in their vices.

All the codes of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.

El amor es la expresión de los propios valores, la mayor recompensa a obtener por las cualidades morales conseguidas gracias a vuestro carácter y personalidad, el precio emocional pagado por un hombre a cambio de la alegría recibida por las virtudes de otro.

No son mis pecados lo que usan para perjudicarme, sino mis virtudes;

Men differ in their virtues, if any, but they are alike in their vices.

Personality and Character Ethics

I have come to believe that humility is the mother of all virtues. Humility says we are not in control, principles are in control, therefore we submit ourselves to principles. Pride says that we are in control, and since our values govern our behavior, we can simply do life our way. We may do so but the consequences of our behavior flow from principles not our values. Therefore we should value principles.

humility is the mother of all virtues

Golden Rule has been rediscovered many times: by the authors of Leviticus and the Mahabharata; by Hillel, Jesus, and Confucius; by the Stoic philosophers of the Roman Empire; by social contract theorists such as Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke; and by moral philosophers such as Kant in his categorical imperative.

I often find that when a ruthless editor forces me to trim an article to fit into a certain number of column-inches, the quality of my prose improves as if by magic. Brevity is the soul of wit, and of many other virtues in writing.

Love is the last and secret name of all the virtues.

As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.

Regardless of its hypothetical virtues, however, the implementation of Marxism was a disaster everywhere it was attempted—and that has motivated attempts by its unrepentant would-be present-day adherents to clothe its ideas in new garb and continue forward, as if nothing of significance has changed.

That is the moral of both narratives: follow the rules until you are capable of being a shining exemplar of what they represent, but break them when those very rules now constitute the most dire impediment to the embodiment of their central virtues.