Virtuous Quotes - Page 22

• The man who is completely wise and virtuous has no need of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his way to action by the greater trust that it procures him.

  Plutarch

  Wise, Men, Ease

  Plutarch, John Dryden (1859). “Plutarch's Lives”, p.446

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• Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough.

  Clement Greenberg

  Sin, Enough, Accepted

  Clement Greenberg (1971). “Art and Culture: Critical Essays”, p.31, Beacon Press

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• Who is the Forgotten Man? He is the clean, quiet, virtuous, domestic citizen, who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard of out of his little circle.

  William Graham Sumner

  Men, Circles, Citizens

  William Graham Sumner (2007). “The Forgotten Man and Other Essays”, p.480, Cosimo, Inc.

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• As you do not sweeten your mouth by saying honey, so you do not grow virtuous by merely talking of virtue.

  Ivan Panin

  Talking, Mouths, Honey

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• By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.

  Bill Gates

  Mean, Ecosystems, Climate

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• I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Mean, People, Wicked

  "A Long Fatal Love Chase". Book by Louisa May Alcott, 1995.

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• Il n'y a que deux sortes d'hommes: les uns justes, qui se croient pe  cheurs; les autres pe  cheurs, qui se croient justes. There are only two types of people: the virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous.

  Blaise Pascal

  Believe, Two, People

  c.1654-1662 Pense es, pt.7, no.534.

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• Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.

  Francois Rabelais

  Men, Long, Honor

  "Gargantua (The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, Book II)". Book by Francois Rabelais, 1534.

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• No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is pretense or dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals.

  Dean Koontz

  Love, Struggle, Ideas

  Dean Koontz (2016). “The Complete Odd Thomas 8-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd, Saint Odd”, p.912, Bantam

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• If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's vices: thou canst not rebuke that in them, that they behold practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts: such as thy behaviour is before thy children's faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.

  Francis Quarles

  Children, Father, Parent

  "Enchiridion". Book by Francis Quarles. Book 3, XVIII, 1640-1641.

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• A Pharisee is someone who is virtuous out of obedience to the Great Beast.

  Simone Weil

  Pharisees, Beast, Obedience

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.169, Psychology Press

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• For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best.

  Sophocles

  Friendship, Love Is, Cast Away

  Sophocles (1837). “The Tragedies of Sophocles: Literally Translated Into English Prose, with Notes”, p.19

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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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• Beauty has so many charms, one knows not how to speak against it; and when it happens that a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul, when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, and the justness of the proportion raises our thoughts up to the heart and wisdom of the great Creator, something may be allowed it,--and something to the embellishments which set it off; and yet, when the whole apology is read, it will be found at last that beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.

  Laurence Sterne

  Beauty, Humility, Heart

  Laurence Sterne (1823). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: With a Life of the Author”, p.241

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• Oh, princes thrive on caviar, the poor on whey and curds, / And politicians, I infer, must eat their windy words. / It's crusts that feed the virtuous, it's cake that comforts sinners, / But writers live on bread and praise at Literary Dinners.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Cake, Comfort, Caviar

  Phyllis McGinley (1951). “A Short Walk from the Station”

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• Like all virtuous people he imagines he must speak the truth.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Truth, People, Speak

  Joyce Carol Oates (1973). “Do with Me You Will”

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• It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion, that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the efficacy of mechanic's institutes, or even of primary and elementary schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry, so long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Christian, Education, School

  Thomas Chalmers (1833). “On Political Economy: In Connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society”, p.342

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• Acts of virtue ripen into habits; and the goodly and permanent result is the formation or establishment of a virtuous character.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Character, Virtue, Habit

  Thomas Chalmers (1833). “On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man”, p.148

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• It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Art, Mistake, Men

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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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• Goodness is equally hateful to the wicked, as vice is to the virtuous.

  Jane Porter

  Evil, Wicked, Vices

  Jane Porter (1801). “The two princes of Persia: addressed to youth”, p.40

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• It is a notable circumstance that mothers who are themselves open to severe comments as to their, moral character, are generally most solicitous as to the virtuous behavior of their daughters.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Daughter, Mother, Character

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• A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty comes most easily to those who have no taste for it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Joy, Taste, Abstinence

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• The sound and proper exercise of the imagination may be made to contribute to the cultivation of all that is virtuous and estimable in the human character.

  John Abercrombie

  Character, Exercise, Imagination

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• In truth, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” isn't about Sept. 11. It's about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies - or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers - and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling. And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage.

  Manohla Dargis

  Baby, Loneliness, Sadness

  "A Youngster With a Key, a Word and a Quest" by Manohla Dargis, www.nytimes.com. December 22, 2011.

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