To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
I’m as pure as the driven slush.
—Tallulah Bankhead (1902–68) American Actress
Remember that the most difficult tasks are consummated, not by a single explosive burst of energy or effort, but by the constant daily application of the best you have within you.
—Og Mandino (1923–96) American Self-Help Author
Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
I was just trying to let them know how I felt about being treated as a human being.
—Rosa Parks (1913–2005) American Civil Rights Leader
Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Compliment others on the virtues they have; and they’re not half as pleased as being complimented for the ones they don’t have.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise all those who have not a single virtue.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.
—Theodore Hesburgh (1917–2015) American Catholic Educator, Clergyman
Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Virtue is uniform and fixed, because she looks for approbation only from Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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
Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues. It is good to abstain, and teach others to abstain, from all that is sinful or hurtful. But making a business of it leads to emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on the more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
There is one single thread binding my way together…the way of the Master consists in doing one’s best…that is all.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general; for one link being wanting, the chain is defective. Perhaps thou art rather innocent than virtuous, and owest more to thy constitution than to thy religion.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
Every vice has its excuse ready.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Though conditions have grown puzzling in their complexity, though changes have been vast, yet we may remain absolutely sure of one thing; that now as ever in the past, and as it will ever be in the future, there can be no substitute for elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when we speak of a man, not only as a good man, but as emphatically a man. We can build up the standard of individual citizenship and individual well-being, we can raise the national standard and make it what it can and shall be made, only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world-old commonplace qualities of truth, justice, and courage, thrift, industry, common sense and genuine sympathy with the fellow feelings of others.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
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
Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily their victims or their disciples; on the contrary, when we associate with the virtuous we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or at least lose, every day, something of our faults.
—Unknown
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher