Virtues - Quotes

A man's virtue should not be measured by his occasional exertions, but by his ordinary doings. - Eliza Cook

A rose gets its color and fragrance from the root, and man his virtue from his childhood. - Austin O’Malley

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance. - Theodore M. Hesburgh

As a good tree produces good fruit; even so does a virtuous soul produce pure thoughts. - William Scott Downey

As you do not sweeten your mouth by saying honey, so you do not grow virtuous by merely talking of virtue. - Ivan Panin

Be not ashamed of thy virtues; honour’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times. - Ben Jonson

Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. - Thomas Jefferson

Every deed of dishonour, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue. - E. H. Chapin

Few men have virtue enough to withstand the highest bidder. - George Washington

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. - Izaak Walton

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it. - Confucius

He who sows virtue reaps glory. - Leonardo da Vinci

How easy it is to be virtuous when we have no inclination to be otherwise. - Dolf Wyllarde

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless. - Moliere

It is easy to meet death in an outburst of public spirit, but difficult to tread the path of virtue calmly.  - Unknown

It is safest to be moderately base – to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue. - Sydney Smith

It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin. - Confucius

It matters not from what stock we are descended so long as we have virtue; for that alone is true Nobility. - Wellins Calcott

Just as a bad year cannot bring death to the man whose stores of grain are large, so an age of corruption cannot confound him whose equipment of virtue is complete. - Mencius

Many a man gets a big reputation for Virtue and Morality, when if the truth were known, the poor boob was simply scared of getting caught. - Robert Elliot Gonzales

Most virtues and flowers bloom best on poor soil. - Austin O’Malley

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination. - Sam Levenson

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. - Ben Franklin

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity. - Joseph Addiso

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. - Confucius

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man. - Joseph Addison

That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert. - Charles Caleb Colton

The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal. - Sallust

The great reason why false virtues pass so well in the world is, that true ones are so seldom near to compare them with. - Fluke Greville

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. -Aristotle

The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him. - William Hazlitt

The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys. - Charles Caleb Colton

The simple virtues of willingness, readiness, alertness and courtesy will carry a man farther than mere smartness. - John Davidson

The ties of virtue ought to be closer than the ties of blood, since the good man is closer to another good man by their similarity of morals than the son is to his father by their similarity of face. - Magdeleine Sable

The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel. - Oliver Goldsmith

The virtues are a chain; and, if you break one link, the whole chain is useless. - Austin O’Malley

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous. - Confucius

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other. - Charles Caleb Colton

There are two things at which most men are grieved: when their faults are exposed, and when their virtues are concealed. - Norman MacDonald

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. - Charles Caleb Colton

There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness. - George Washington

This is the tax a man must pay to his virtues – they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him, which would have passed without observation in another. - Charles Caleb Colton

To be proud of virtue is to poison oneself with the antidote. - Benjamin Franklin

Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains. - Charles Caleb Colton

Virtue and vice are the only things in this world, which, with our souls, are capable of surviving death; the former is the rational and only procuring cause of all intellectual happiness, and the latter of conscious guilt and misery; and therefore, our indispensable duty and ultimate interest is, to love, cultivate and improve the one, as the means of our greatest good, and to hate and abstain from the other, as productive of our greatest evil. - Ethan Allen

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it. - George Bernard Shaw

Virtue extends our days: he live two lives who relives his past with pleasure. - Marcus Valerius Martialis

Virtue has more admirers than followers. - Norman MacDonald

Virtue is as good as a thousand shields. - Latin Proverb

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. - John Locke

Virtue is indeed its own reward. - Claudius

Virtue is insufficient temptation. - George Bernard Shaw

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set. - Francis Bacon

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones. - Aristotle

Virtue is more to a man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue. - Confucius

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. - Confucius

Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good. - Miquel de Cervantes

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs. - Christopher Marlowe 

Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Virtue is the health of the soul. - Joseph Joubert

Virtue makes us appear amiable to others; vice, contemptible even to ourselves. - Norman MacDonald

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Virtue, like beauty, is commonly only skin deep. - Austin O’Malley

We need greater virtues to sustain good fortune than bad. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan

Without virtue man is merely the most dangerous of the animals. - Unknown