Virtue Quotes - Page 24

• Man is my brother, and I am nearer related to him through his vices than I am through his virtue.

  Josh Billings

  Brother, Men, Vices

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• We should make virtue our master, not our servant.

  Josh Billings

  Should, Masters, Servant

  Josh Billings (1870). “Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things”, p.144

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• I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Believe, Faults, Neighbor

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• The absence of temptation is the absence of virtue.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Temptation, Absence

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• We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Desire, May, Violent

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• The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Two, Doe, Blades

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.88, Trajectory Inc

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• Every man, in proportion to his virtue, considers himself, with respect to the great community of mankind, as the steward and guardian of their interests in the property which he chances to possess. Every man, in proportion to his wisdom, sees the manner in which it is his duty to employ the resources which the consent of mankind has intrusted to his discretion.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Men, Community, Chance

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1980). “Shelley on Love: An Anthology”, p.89, Univ of California Press

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• I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Christian, Prayer, Philosophy

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, John McVickar (1854). “Coleridge's Aids to reflection: with the author's last corrections”, p.6

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• Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

  Edmund Burke

  Saving, Judgment, Economy

  Edmund Burke (1834). “The Beauties of Burke, Consisting of Selections from His Works”, p.59

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• The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Father, Pride

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• Magnify the virtues, minimize the faults.

  Edgar Cayce

  Faults

  Edgar Cayce (2010). “Planetary Influences & Sojourns”, p.48, ARE Press

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• It was one thing to go to the end of the world; it was quite another thing to make oneself at home there. Even respectability seemed to lose some of its virtue when one practiced it in a tent.

  Hector Hugh Munro

  Home, World, Tents

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• Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me.

  Dick Cavett

  Criticism, Dying, Innocent

  Dick Cavett (2014). “Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks”, p.10, Henry Holt and Company

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• Thomas Jefferson, the leading Enlightenment figure in the United States, along with Benjamin Franklin, who took exactly the same view, argued that dependence will lead to "subservience and venality", and will "suffocate the germs of virtue". And remember, by dependence he meant wage labor, which was considered an abomination under classical liberal principles.

  Noam Chomsky

  Views, Enlightenment, Principles

  "Education and Democracy". Talk at Michigan State University, March 28, 1995.

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• Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.

  Ayn Rand

  Goal, Rewards, Life Is

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.521, Penguin

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• In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

  Denis Diderot

  Country, Believe, Vices

  "Selected Writings". Book by Lester G. Crocker, 1966.

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• It is possible that the meaning of wisdom in Hebrew indicates aptitude for stratagems and the application of thought in such a way that the stratagems and ruses may be used in achieving either rational or moral virtues, or in achieving skill in a practical art, or in working evil and wickedness.

  Maimonides

  Art, Skills, Evil

  Moses Maimonides, Isadore Twersky (1972). “A Maimonides Reader”, p.353, Behrman House, Inc

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• Love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided that its flame appear outwardly.

  Dante Alighieri

  Flames, Kindles

  Dante Alighieri (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Dante Alighieri (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• We are now to rank among the nations of the world; but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness.... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.

  George Mason

  Blessing, Government, Justice

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• What makes a man heavy is the gravity of virtue. Without it, man will be so light that he will be drifted in the winds of immorality.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Men, Light, Wind

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• Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Character, Men

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• The faith of scientists in the power and truth of mathematics is so implicit that their work has gradually become less and less observation, and more and more calculation.... But the facts which are accepted by virtue of these tests are not actually observed at all.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Tests, Facts, Scientist

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• Competing against each other leaves little space for reciprocity and the growth of social capital. Running against another in a race may benefit our speed, but jointly organising the sports day produces cooperation and trust. There are many situations where cooperation and reciprocity are more effective than competition. Civic virtues come from building on what we have in common rather than by using our differences to create in-groups, outgroups and fear driven competition

  Eva Cox

  Sports, Running, Race

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• Freedom is not just something with which we are born; it is something we achieve. America did not receive a perpetual endowment of freedom; it has had to struggle and fight to preserve it. Freedom is not an heirloom or an antique; it is a life that must fight against the corrosive powers of death and nourish itself on the daily bread of goodness and virtue.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Struggle, Fighting, America

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• Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.

  Honore de Balzac

  Mind, Great Minds, Misfortunes

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