Virtue Quotes - Page 16

• The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.

  John Adams

  Blessing, Government, Vices

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.418

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• Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Art, Demand, Chess

  Vladimir Nabokov (2015). “Letters to V??ra”, p.531, Knopf

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• When the Congress first met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer . . . Mr. Samuel Adams arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country. He . . . had heard that Mr. Duche . . . deserved that character and therefore he moved that Mr. Duche . . . might be desired to read prayers to the Congress . . . . After (he read several prayers), Mr. Duche, unexpected to everybody, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present.

  John Adams

  Country, Prayer, Character

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• Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.

  John Adams

  Real, Passion, Government

  Massachusetts Historical Society, John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Warren (1917). “Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814”

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• Will you tell me how to prevent riches from producing luxury? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?

  John Adams

  Luxury, Riches, Vices

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.386

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• The Character which a youth acquires in the early part of his Life is of great importance towards his future prosperity-one false step may prove irretrievable to his future usefulness.

  Abigail Adams

  Character, May, Steps

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• It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.

  John Adams

  Horse, Kings, Freedom

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.546

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• [D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.

  John Adams

  Eye, Men, Intellectual

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• Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Generosity, Humanity

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• Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.

  Daniel Webster

  Inspirational, Character, Personal Worth

  Daniel Webster, Edward Everett (1851). “Speeches delivered on various public occasions”, p.490

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• All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd even toward the best objective.

  William Ellery Channing

  Determination, Lying, Self

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• Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. So that a single act of mine may spread and spread in widening circles, through a nation or humanity. Through my vice I intensify the taint of vice throughout the universe. Through my misery I make multitudes sad. On the other hand, every development of my virtue makes me an ampler blessing to my race. Every new truth that I gain makes me a brighter light to humanity.

  William Ellery Channing

  Blessing, Light, Race

  William Ellery Channing (1888). “The Works of William E. Channing”

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• Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

  Francis Bacon

  Library, Shrines, Saint

  Francis Bacon, Brian Vickers (1996). “The Major Works”, p.170, Oxford University Press, USA

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• What tender force, what dignity divine, what virtue consecrating every feature; around that neck what dross are gold and pearl!

  Edward Young

  Gold, Pearls, Necks

  Edward Young, John Doran, James Nichols (1854). “The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose of the Rev. Edward Young, LL.D.: Revised and Collated with the Earliest Editions. To which is Prefixed A Life of the Author”, p.146

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• Facing the darkness, admitting the pain, allowing the pain to be pain, is never easy. This is why courage - big-heartedness - is the most essential virtue on the spiritual journey. But if we fail to let pain be pain - and our entire patriarchal culture refuses to let this happen - then pain will haunt us in nightmarish ways. We will become pain's victims instead of the healers we might become.

  Matthew Fox

  Spiritual, Pain, Journey

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• Love is the sum of all virtue, and love disposes us to good.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Love Is, And Love

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• Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.

  Felix Adler

  Roots, Fruit, Corruption

  Founding address of New York Society for Ethical Culture, May 15, 1876.

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• If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path.

  Daniel Webster

  Cheer, Father, Shining

  Daniel Webster (1853). “The Great Orations and Senatorial Speech of Daniel Webster”, p.24

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• Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue.

  John Webster

  Men, Example, Action

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• For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

  Francis Bacon

  Wisdom, Men, Evil

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• Let frugality and industry be our virtues.

  John Adams

  Life, Frugality, Industry

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.58, UPNE

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• When public virtue is gone, when the national spirit is fled the republic is lost in essence, though it may still exist in form

  John Adams

  Essence, Gone, Republic

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.603

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• The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

  John Adams

  Men, Dignity, Wells

  John Adams (1841). “Letters, Addressed to His Wife”, p.277

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• What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money; and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.

  John Adams

  America, Judging, Decision

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography (cont.) Diary. Notes of a debate in the Senate of the United States. Essays: On private revenge. On self-delusion. On private revenge. Dissertation on the canon and the feudal law. Instructions of the town of Braintree to their representative, 1765. The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym. Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford. Instructions of the town of Boston to their representatives, 1768. Instructions of the town of”, p.171

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• As far as the people that have inspired me, they're the people that I have played with the most. For example, the record that I made called Virtue, there was a wonderful band and a wonderful drummer by the name of Ludwig Afonso and a wonderful bass player by the name of Armando Gola.

  Eldar Djangirov

  Player, People, Inspired

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