quotations about virtue
There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
There are some persons on whom virtue sits almost as ungraciously as vice.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
The safeguards of virtue are hateful to the evil disposed.
AESOP
"The Thieves and the Cock", Aesop's Fables
Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Virtue alone has majesty in death.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Wealth is useless on the day of wrath, but virtue saves from death.
BIBLE
Proverbs 11:4
To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, tho' descended from the Conqueror.
EDWARD YOUNG
Love of Fame: The Universal Passion in Seven Characteristical Satires
The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Vicar of Wakefield
I have my own virtue, which I am constantly cultivating and refining by teaching myself not to tolerate in me or my surroundings anything but the exquisite.
ANDRE GIDE
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality
Virtue seeks the greatest distance from vice.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
It matters not from what stock we are descended so long as we have virtue; for that alone is true Nobility.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Happiness and Virtue clasp hands and walk together.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.
JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Both excess and defect are alike prejudicial to moral virtue.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon