Virtuous Quotes - Page 24

• It is a notable circumstance that mothers who are themselves open to severe comments as to their, moral character, are generally most solicitous as to the virtuous behavior of their daughters.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Daughter, Mother, Character

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• To one who has led a virtuous life, to sin is the easiest thing in the world. No experience of unpleasant consequences grits that smooth sliding fall, no recollection of disillusionment blurs that pure desire.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Fall, Desire, World

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1988). “Selected stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Vintage

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• All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself.  This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life.  The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.

  Epictetus

  Life, Motivational, Happiness

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• It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Art, Mistake, Men

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• Acts of virtue ripen into habits; and the goodly and permanent result is the formation or establishment of a virtuous character.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Character, Virtue, Habit

  Thomas Chalmers (1833). “On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man”, p.148

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• It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion, that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the efficacy of mechanic's institutes, or even of primary and elementary schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry, so long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Christian, Education, School

  Thomas Chalmers (1833). “On Political Economy: In Connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society”, p.342

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• Like all virtuous people he imagines he must speak the truth.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Truth, People, Speak

  Joyce Carol Oates (1973). “Do with Me You Will”

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• Oh, princes thrive on caviar, the poor on whey and curds, / And politicians, I infer, must eat their windy words. / It's crusts that feed the virtuous, it's cake that comforts sinners, / But writers live on bread and praise at Literary Dinners.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Cake, Comfort, Caviar

  Phyllis McGinley (1951). “A Short Walk from the Station”

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• The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.

  Marquis de Sade

  Mean, Government, Vices

  marquis de Sade (1988). “Juliette”, Grove Press

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• The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.

  Samuel Adams

  Reality, Hands, People

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• Americans rouse - be unanimous, be virtuous, be firm, exert your courage, trust in Heaven, and nobly defy the enemies both of God and man!

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Heaven, Enemy

  Alexander Hamilton (1851). “The works of Alexander Hamilton: containing his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military”, p.676

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• Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Giving Up, Real

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• If the traveller can find A virtuous and wise companion Let him go with him joyfully And overcome the dangers of the way. But if you cannot find Friend or master to go with you, Travel on alone.

  Gautama Buddha

  Wise, Meditation, Overcoming

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• Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

  William Shakespeare

  Royal, Fairness, Gracious

  William Shakespeare (2013). “First Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 & Richard III”, p.912, BookCaps Study Guides

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• A free, virtuous, and enlightened people must know full well the great principles and causes upon which their happiness depends.

  James Monroe

  People, Principles, Causes

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• Flirting is the sin of the virtuous and the virtue of the
  sinful.

  Paul Bourget

  Flirting, Sin, Virtue

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• Goodness is equally hateful to the wicked, as vice is to the virtuous.

  Jane Porter

  Evil, Wicked, Vices

  Jane Porter (1801). “The two princes of Persia: addressed to youth”, p.40

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• The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.

  Tacitus

  Evil, Office, Deeds

  "Annales" (AD 117), III. 65,

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• To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.

  Vittorio Alfieri

  Wicked, Crime, Repentance

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (p. 665), 1922.

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• Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.

  Heinrich Heine

  Mean, Solitude, Individuality

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• The truth is . . . that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Book, Reading

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

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

  Confucius

  Responsibility, Men, Virtue

  "The Analects". Book by Confucius,

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• A good character is something you must make for yourself. It cannot be inherited from parents. It cannot be created by having extraordinary advantages. It isn't a gift of birth, wealth, talent or station. It is the result of your own endeavor. It is the reward that comes from living good principles and manifesting a virtuous and honorable life.

  L. Tom Perry

  Good Life, Integrity, Character

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• Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.

  Walter Bagehot

  Mean, Mind, Persons

  Walter Bagehot (1973). “Literary studies”

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• The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Men, Command Not, Soul

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.23, Wordsworth Editions

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