Virtuous Life Quotes

• It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Prayer, Saint, Impossible

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• The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

  Frederick Douglass

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Speech on the twenty-third anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1885

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• He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Men, Feelings

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

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• Live a virtuous life, help everyone and spread joy wherever you go.

  Shri Radhe Maa

  Joy, Helping, Virtuous

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• One should not say that it is impossible to reach a virtuous life; but one should say that it is not easy. Nor do those who have reached it find it easy to maintain.

  Anthony the Great

  Impossible, Easy, Should

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• To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mind, Enthusiasm, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.255, Simon and Schuster

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• To one who has led a virtuous life, to sin is the easiest thing in the world. No experience of unpleasant consequences grits that smooth sliding fall, no recollection of disillusionment blurs that pure desire.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Fall, Desire, World

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1988). “Selected stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Vintage

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• The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileg'd beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

  Edward Young

  Life, Fate, Men

  Edward Young, John Mitford (1852). “The poetical works of Edward Young”, p.34

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• ...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.

  A.C. Grayling

  Mastery, Fundamentals, Emotion

  A. C. Grayling (2004). “Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life Without God”, p.4, Oxford University Press, USA

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• To believe in the supernatural is not simply to believe that after living a successful, material, and fairly virtuous life here one will continue to exist in the best-possible substitute for this world, or that after living a starved and stunted life here one will be compensated with all the good things one has gone without: it is to believe that the supernatural is the greatest reality here and now.

  T. S. Eliot

  Believe, Successful, Reality

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• Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction.... In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life - in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character.... It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established.

  John Stuart Mill

  Christian, Lying, Selfish

  John Stuart Mill (1950). “Utilitarianism, liberty, and representative government”

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• Conversion comes as we live pure and virtuous lives and enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

  Bonnie L. Oscarson

  Ghost, Companionship, Holy

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• All transitory titles I detest; a virtuous life I mean to boast alone. Our birth's our sires'; our virtues be our own.

  Michael Drayton

  Mean, Titles, Birth

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• The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Children, Giving, Goal

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• Just as the Salt Lake Temple took 40 years to build, stone by stone, you are building a virtuous life, step by step.

  Mary N. Cook

  Lakes, Years, Stones

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• It is obvious that different individuals require different things to live good, healthy, and virtuous lives.

  Tom G. Palmer

  Healthy, Different, Individual

  Tom G. Palmer (2009). “Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice”, p.38, Cato Institute

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• She lived, we'll say, A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all (But that she had not lived enough to know)

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Quiet, Enough, Virtuous

  Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2012). “Browning: Poems”, p.164, Everyman's Library

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