Virtue Quotes - Page 6

• Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

  Maya Angelou

  Life, Happiness, Inspiring

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Jun 08, 2009

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• The good hate sin because they love virtue.
  [Lat., Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.]

  Horace

  Hate, Sin

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• Every generous action loves the public view; yet no theatre for virtue is equal to a consciousness of it.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Views, Theatre, Action

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (2005). “Tusculan Disputations: On the Nature of Gods, and the Commonwealth”, p.90, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed.

  Alexander Pope

  Vices, Sometimes, Feds

  Alexander Pope (1847). “The works of Alexander Pope, with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author [&c.] by W. Roscoe”, p.135

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• Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
  Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate.
  In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
  They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.

  Alexander Pope

  Soil, Bears, Wonder

  Alexander Pope, William Warburton (1797). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Life of Alexander Pope. Poems”, p.195

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• Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and pious men do not darken in their middle course.

  John Milton

  Men, Vices, Action

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John (1871). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.469

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• A difficult form of virtue is to try in your own life to obey what you believe to be God's will.

  John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

  Believe, Trying, Form

  Reg. v. Ramsey, 1 Cababe & Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 145, 1883.

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• A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

  George Orwell

  Men, Tragedy, Triumph

  George Orwell (2009). “Critical Essays”

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• In a despotic government, the only principle by which the tyrant who is to move the whole machine means to regulate and manage the people is fear, by the servile dread of his power. But a free government, which of all others is far the most preferable, cannot be supported without virtue.

  Samuel Williams

  Moving, Mean, Government

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• Virtue consisteth of three parts,--temperance, fortitude, and justice.

  Epicurus

  Justice, Three, Fortitude

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• The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

  Confucius

  Life, Success, Philosophical

  Confucius (2012). “The Analects of Confucius In Plain and Simple English: BookCaps Study Guide”, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Light, Sight, Vices

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.64, Oxford University Press

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• Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

  John Milton

  Chimes, Teach, Higher

  'Comus' (1637) l. 1019

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• Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

  Horace Walpole

  Vices, Lost, Knows

  In L. Kronenberger 'The extraordinary Mr Wilkes' (1974) pt. 3, ch. 2 'The Ruling Class'

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• Even virtue is an art; and even its devotees are divided into those who practise it and those who are merely amateurs.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Art, Morality, Divided

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• Virtue is the nursing-mother of all human pleasures, who, in rendering them just, renders them also pure and permanent; in moderating them, keeps them in breath and appetite; in interdicting those which she herself refuses, whets our desires to those that she allows; and, like a kind and liberal mother, abundantly allows all that nature requires, even to satiety, if not to lassitude.

  Socrates

  Mother, Nursing, Desire

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• Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory.

  John Hancock

  Christian, Wise, Encouragement

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• Repentance is the virtue of weak minds.

  John Dryden

  Mind, Weak, Repentance

  'The Indian Emperor' (1665) act 3, sc. 1

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• Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.

  Isaac Barrow

  Pain, Night, Mushrooms

  Isaac Barrow (1831). “The works of Dr. Isaac Barrow”, p.241

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• Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Men, Boast

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• The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Greatness, Men, Good Man

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• Virtue is not a thing you can have by halves; it is or it is not.

  Honore de Balzac

  Half

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• Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound,
  Which takes not solid virtue for its ground.

  Charles Churchill

  Thrones, Weak

  Charles Churchill (1772). “Poems: By Charles Churchill. In Three Volumes. With Large Corrections and Additions. To which is Added, the Life of the Author. Adorned with Cuts”

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• She who is more ashamed of dishonesty than of poverty will not be easily overcome.

  Samuel Richardson

  Overcoming, Poverty, Dishonesty

  Samuel Richardson (1755). “A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments, maxims, cautions, and reflexions, contained in the histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison: Digested under proper heads, with references to the volume, ...”, p.4

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• It must be admitted that the conception of virtue cannot be separated from the conception of happiness-producing conduct.

  Herbert Spencer

  Conception

  Herbert Spencer (2016). “The Data of Ethics: Great Essays”, p.35, VM eBooks

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