All forced virtue is degrading in it effect..
... Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time..
As the love of the heavens makes us heavenly, the love of virtue virtuous, so doth the love of the world make one become worldly..
I willingly confess that it likes me better when I find virtue in a fair lodging than when I am bound to seek it in an ill-favored creature..
Virtue is not a thing you can have by halves; it is or it is not..
Wherever God is adored, he is adored in virtue of a supernatural doctrine; wherever he is despised, he is despised in the name of nature and reason..
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: 'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause..
Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues..
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave..
He who dies for virtue does not perish..
It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves..
Obedience is the only virtue that plants the other virtues in the heart and preserves them after they have been planted..
A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wi….
[A] free government . . . cannot be supported without Virtue..
My experience with working with really great actors is you don't have to act. All you have to do is listen. And, that's sort of a virtue and a wonder….
The man who is always fortunate cannot easily have a great reverence for virtue..
Whatever you do, do it gently and unhurriedly, because virtue is not a pear to be eaten in one bite..
Virtue consists in fleeing vice..
My sorrows are overwhelming, but my virtue is left to me..
The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous..
True patience is grounded in wisdom and compassion..