“If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
First known in Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (1732), but not found in the writings of Edmund Burke.
Misattributed
“No one can be happy without virtue.”
Book I, section 48
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)
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Do you have more details about the quote "No one can be happy without virtue." by Marcus Tullius Cicero?
Marcus Tullius Cicero180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
"Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion" (1728).
1720s
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
Zeno, 53.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 7: The Stoics
“Recommend to your children virtues, that alone can make them happy, not gold.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician
“Commerce and Culture,” pp. 282-283.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
Speech to the National Convention, (5 February 1794), as quoted in The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 1 (1951) by Edward Hallett Carr, p. 154 <br class="br">Variant translations: <br class="br">The attribute of popular government in a revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror. Terror without virtue is fatal; virtue without terror is impotent. The terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue. <br class="br">As quoted in Red Star Over Southern Africa (1988) by Morgan Norval, p. xvi <br class="br">If the mainspring of popular government in peace time is virtue, its resource during a revolution is at one and the same time virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is merely terrible; terror, without which virtue is simply powerless. <br class="br">As quoted in Rousseau, Robespierre and English Romanticism (1999) by Gregory Dart <br class="br">Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs. <br class="br">Original French: La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible; elle est donc une émanation de la vertu ; elle est moins un principe particulier, qu’une conséquence du principe général de la démocratie, appliqué aux plus pressants besoins de la patrie. <br class="br">From Sur les principes de morale politique http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_principes_morale_politique_05_02_94.htm
“There is no valid virtue without piety, and there is no authentic piety without virtue.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher
[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 70, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Spiritual path, Virtue
“Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.”
Edward Abbey book Desert Solitaire
"Water", p. 113; this is often quoted as simply: Without courage, all other virtues are useless. <!-- Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989 (1994) p. 207 -->
Source: Desert Solitaire (1968)
Context: Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.
“That virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness.”
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
Plato, 42.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 3: Plato