Top 1200 Virtue Quotes & Sayings

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.

O let us still the secret joy partake, To follow virtue even for virtue's sake.

Deliberate virtue is never worth much: The virtue of feeling or habit is the thing.

Spirituality is not a question of morality, it is a question of vision. Spirituality is not the practising of virtues - because if you practise a virtue it is no longer a virtue. A practised virtue is a dead thing, a dead weight. Virtue is virtue only when it is spontaneous; virtue is virtue only when it is natural, unpractised - when it comes out of your vision, out of your awareness, out of your understanding.

I have the virtue of being still amongst the living. Some would say that is my only virtue.

By the virtue of modesty the devout person governs all his exterior acts. With good reason, then, does St. Paul recommend this virtue to all and declare how necessary it is and as if this were not enough he considers that this virtue should be obvious to all.

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

Nonviolence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like other virtues.

Epicurus says, "gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it." And where is the virtue that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.

I believe that eclecticism is a virtue. It may not be a word, but its definitely a virtue.

The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

friendship is a virtue which comprehends all the rest; none being fit for this, who is not adorned with every other virtue.

Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.

He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

When I was a child . . . Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good.

Strength was the virtue of paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity.

There is no substitute for virtue. Keep your thoughts virtuous. Rise above the filth that's all around you in this world and stand tall in strength and virtue. You can do this and you will be happier for it for as long as you live. God bless you in cherishing, developing and holding on to this great gift, the quality of personal virtue.

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

When we see a special reformer we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your own virtue? Is virtue piecemeal?

Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left.

Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

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.

The highest virtue is not virtuous. Therefore it has virtue. The lowest virtue holds on to virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.

Woman is stronger by virtue of her feelings than man by virtue of his power.

Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

Virtue is the master of talent, talent is the servant of virtue. Talent without virtue is like a house where there is no master and their servant manages its affairs. How can there be no mischief?

If then, as we say, good craftsmen look to the mean as they work, and if virtue, like nature, is more accurate and better than any form of art, it will follow that virtue has the quality of hitting the mean. I refer to moral virtue [not intellectual], for this is concerned with emotions and actions, in which one can have excess or deficiency or a due mean.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

Liberty is the essential precondition for achieving virtue... In order to exercise virtue, we need to have the ability to choose freely.

Hast thou virtue? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.

It is your virtue, being men, to try; And it is ours, by virtue to deny.

Those who make virtue their profession are the ruin of virtue.

I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.

It’s true what they say about patience being a virtue; it just happens to be a virtue that I choose not to pursue.

Virtue is the highest reward. Virtue truly goes before all things. Liberty, safety, life, property, parents, country, and children are protected and preserved. Virtue has all things in herself; he who has virtue has all things that are good attending him. [Lat., Virtus praemium est optimum. Virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto. Libertas, salus, vita, res, parentes, Patria et prognati tutantur, servantur; Virtus omnia in se habet; omnia assunt bona, quem penes est vertus.]

If what was said in the Ethics is true, that the happy life is the life according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best. And the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions; for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.

The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.

A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.

The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu , virtue free of moral acid).

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

lf the attribute of popular government in peace is virtue, the attribute of popular government in revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror, virtue without which terror is fatal, terror without which virtue is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue.

There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.

A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.

Virtue hath no virtue if it be not impugned; then appeareth how great it is, of what value and power it is, when by patience it approveth what it works.

Virtue is virtue only when it is spontaneous; virtue is virtue only when it is natural, unpractised - when it comes out of your vision, out of your awareness, out of your understanding.

There is a mean in all things; even virtue itself has stated limits; which not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.

Faith is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine.

the virtue of imagination has this in common with the virtue of courage. Without it, you are less good: with it, you are not necessarily better.

Just as riches are an impediment to virtue in the wicked, so in the good they are an aid of virtue.

Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.

Love is the virtue of the Heart, Sincerity is the virtue of the Mind, Decision is the virtue of the Will, Courage is the virtue of the Spirit.

If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.

Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness.

The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.