Quotes on Virtue

After all, the supreme virtue in all art is soul, perhaps it is the only thing which gives art a right to be.

We live by revelations, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget all the questions and we become like the pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.

Virtue, dear friend, needs no defense,_x000D_ The surest guard is innocence: _x000D_ None knew, till guilt created fear, _x000D_ What darts or poisoned arrows were

Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.

Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

Virtue alone is happiness below.

Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security.

Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.

Without courage, all other virtues are useless.

My good intentions are completely lethal.

A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understanding her text.

There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Those words, temperate and moderate, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue.