Quotes on Virtue

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.

The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit.

What the great learning teaches, is to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence.

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

How great is the path proper to the Sage! Like overflowing water, it sends forth and nourishes all things, and rises up to the height of heaven. All-complete is its greatness! It embraces the three hundred rules of ceremony, and the three thousand rules of demeanor. It waits for the proper man, and then it is trodden. Hence it is said, 'Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.'

The way to attain the virtue of mercy lies in our constant awareness of being encompassed by mercy.

I have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

If there is any realm where distinction is especially difficult, it is the realm of childhood memories, the realm of beloved images harbored in memory since childhood. These memories which live by the image and in virtue of the image become, at certain times of our lives and particularly during the quiet age, the origin and matter of a complex reverie: the memory dreams, and reverie remembers.

MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.

To be happy, one must rid oneself of prejudice, be virtuous, healthy, and have a capacity for enjoyment and for passion.

PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

I wish for you a life of wealth, health and happiness; a life in which you give to yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason, the value of knowledge, and the influence of faith in your own ability to dream about and achieve worthy rewards.

The new life created by the final integration is self-aware yet without ego, capable of inhabiting a body yet not attached to it, and guided by wisdom rather than emotion. Whole and virtuous, it can never die.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.

Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues.

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.