Virtuous Quotes - Page 6

• A husband can commit no greater blunder than to discuss his wife, if she is virtuous, with his mistress; unless it be to mention his mistress, if she is beautiful, to his wife.

  Honore de Balzac

  Beautiful, Husband, Mistake

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• At the heart of our public morality is the idea that he who gives generously is most virtuous and morally praiseworthy; that there is no greater citizen than she who sacrifices; and that there is no greater measure of worth than contribution. These are values we can be proud of. After all, there is no moral system or religion on earth where the guiding ethic is grab more for yourself.

  Eric Liu

  Heart, Sacrifice, Ideas

  Eric Liu, Nick Hanauer (2012). “The True Patriot”, p.34, Sasquatch Books

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• When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Wicked, Faults

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• Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.

  Peter Kreeft

  Purpose, Ethics, Illusion

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• It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play.

  William Hazlitt

  Drama, Play, Remarkable

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1501, Delphi Classics

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• This is the part of a great man, after he has maturely weighed all circumstances, to punish the guilty, to spare the many, and in every state of fortune not to depart from an upright, virtuous conduct.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Greatness, Men, Guilty

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1855). “Cicero's Three books of offices, or moral duties: also his Cato Major, an essay on old age; Lælius, an essay on friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's dream; and Letter to Quintus on the duties of a magistrate”, p.42

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• It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Flower, Men, Tree

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• A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Sex, Women

  Joseph Addison (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Joseph Addison (Illustrated)”, p.3311, Delphi Classics

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• The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Eye, People, Voting

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• Princes that would their people should do well
  Must at themselves begin, as at the head;
  For men, by their example, pattern out
  Their limitations, and regard of laws:
  A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.

  Ben Jonson

  Men, Law, People

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• Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

  Henry Fielding

  Support, Vices, Insult

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• The virtuous mind that ever walks attended
  By a strong siding champion, Conscience.

  John Milton

  Strong, Champion, Mind

  1634 Comus, A Mask, l.209-11.

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• For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward.

  Plutarch

  Eye, Clouds, Light

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• we do know now, all of us, that the most appalling cruelties are committed by apparently virtuous governments in expectation of a great good to come, never learning that the evil done now is the sure destroyer of the expected good.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Government, Evil, Expectations

  Katherine Anne Porter, Darlene Harbour Unrue (2008). “Collected stories and other writings”

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• Temptations make one very censorious. If you are virtuous you condemn the wicked and if you are wicked, you condemn the virtuous.

  Elizabeth Bibesco

  Temptation, Wicked, Ifs

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• Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Proportion

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)”, p.771, Delphi Classics

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• And rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds,
  Is one with Prayer.

  Bayard Taylor

  Prayer, Deeds

  Bayard Taylor (1856). “Poems”

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• He who is virtuous is wise; and he who is wise is good; and he who is good is happy.

  Boethius

  Happiness, Wise

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• There is no bounty to be showed to such
  As have real goodness: Bounty is
  A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act
  Can take effect on them that have no power
  Of equal habitude to apprehend it?

  Ben Jonson

  Real, Spices, Virtue

  Ben Jonson, Margaret Jane Kidnie (2000). “Poetaster, Or, The Arraignment: Sejanus His Fall ; The Devil is an Ass ; The New Inn, Or, The Light Heart”, p.59, Oxford : Oxford University Press

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• This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.

  Tacitus

  Men, Expression, History

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• A good character is, in all cases, the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents; it is not created by external advantages; it is no necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents, or station; but it is the result of one's own endeavors-the fruit and reward of good principles manifested in a course of virtuous and honorable action.

  Josiah Johnson Hawes

  Character, Parent, Rewards

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• Whatever is graceful is virtuous, and whatever is virtuous is graceful.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Grace

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1755). “M.T. Cicero, His Offices: Or, His Treatise Concerning the Moral Duties of Mankind; His Cato Major, Concerning the Means of Making Old Age Happy; His Laelius, Concerning Friendship; His Moral Paradoxes; The Vision of Scipio, Concerning a Future State; His Letter Concerning the Duties of a Magistrate. With Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.53

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• Freemasonry is a moral order, instituted by virtuous men, with the praiseworthy design of recalling to our remembrance the most sublime truths, in the midst of the most innocent and social pleasures, founded on liberality, brotherly love and charity.

  Andrew Jackson

  Men, Order, Remembrance

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• Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable barrier, and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay hamlets of reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Mean, Reality, Men

  Thomas Carlyle (1869). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh : in Three Books”, p.131

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• Rarely do we meet in one combined, a beauteous body and a virtuous mind.

  Juvenal

  Beauty, Mind, Body

  Juvenal (1871). “The satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius ...”, p.451

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