It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
It would not be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The disgrace of others often keeps tender minds from vice.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
It is the edge and temper of the blade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money or possessions that make man considerable, but his virtue.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.
—Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) American Physician
Vice is a creature of such hideous mien… that the more you see it the better you like it.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Author, Writer, Humorist
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Nature does not loathe virtue: it is unaware of its existence.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Here am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends… with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice!
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Writer
When will you understand that being normal isn’t necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.
—Indian Proverb
The most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us.
—Indian Proverb
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the law, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Every condition of life, if attended with virtue, is undisturbed and delightful; but when vice is intermixed, it renders even things that appear sumptuous and magnificent, distasteful and uneasy to the possessor.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.
—George Washington Carver (1864–1943) American Scientist, Botanist, Educator, Inventor
Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.
—Samuel Butler
If we’ve learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.
—George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American Republican Statesman, 41st President
The highest virtue found in the tropics is chastity, and in the colder regions, temperance.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Of all the benefits which virtue confers on us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
I have always thought it would be easier to redeem a man steeped in vice and crime than a greedy, narrow-minded, pitiless merchant.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Novelist
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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