Quotes about virtue

A collection of quotes on the topic of virtue, man, other, good.

Quotes about virtue

“Without underestimating the virtues of technical, specialized and necessary education, we cannot accept an education that eliminates the other dimension of human knowledge, that which motivates us to be more cultured, more human, deeper, more emotional.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Perú Informa. Interview. https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/

Motivation, Education, Knowledge

“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Attributed

Life

“Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.”

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) English dramatist, poet and translator

Source: Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1

“One’s virtue cannot always be trusted; for some, use their righteousness for self-righteous purposes.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1981

Self-confidence

“A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool," Polemic (March 1947) - Full text online http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf]

“A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue.”

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) Congolese Prime Minister, cold war leader, executed

Congo, My Country

“You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught.”

Protagoras (-486–-411 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

Justice, Courage, Knowledge

“All government — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on compromise and barter.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775), Works of Edmund Burke Volume ii, p. 169

“For it falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours.”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

“Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

" The Problem of Increasing Human Energy http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm", Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900)

Motivational, Deep, Back To Work

“Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:
And some condemned for a fault alone.”

William Shakespeare Measure for Measure

Source: Measure for Measure

Forgiveness

“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.”

Russell Kirk (1918–1994) American political theorist and writer

Men, Light

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Wisdom, Justice, Law, Idea

“The nation and the government in Germany are one thing. The will of the people is the will of the government and vice versa. The modern structure of the German State is a higher form of democracy [ennobled democracy] in which, by virtue of the people’s mandate, the government is exercised authoritatively while there is no possibility for parliamentary interference to obliterate and render ineffective the execution of the nation’s will.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

“On National-Socialist Germany And Her Contribution Towards Peace.” Speech to the representatives of the international press at Geneva on September 28. 1933. German League of Nations Union News Service, PRO, FO 371/16728. Included within Völkerbund: Journal for International Politics, Ausgaben 1-103, 1933, p.16
1930s

People, Exercises, Democracy

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!… The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes — his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!… When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good — you will get that…. Tell your son Tom you KNOW he'll be glad to fill that woodbox — then watch him start, alert and interested!”

Eleanor H. Porter (1868–1920) American novelist

Works, Pollyanna (1913)

Women, Men, People, Beauty

“I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me; may the listener take me not to task.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

As quoted in The Baburnama : Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, as translated by Wheeler M. Thackston (2002), p. xxvii

Truth, History, Reality, Evil

“We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion.”

Pelagius (360–420) British monk

Letter to Demetrias

Hope

“Virtue hidden hath no value.”

Claudian (370–404) Roman Latin poet

Panegyricus de Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti, line 222 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Claudian/De_IV_Consulatu_Honorii*.html#222.

“No virtue is equal to the good of others and
no vice greater than hurting others.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Tulsidas in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 37

Hurt

“Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Variant: Someone who is a clever speaker and maintains a 'too-smiley' face is seldom considered a humane person.
Source: The Analects, Chapter I

Appearance

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together…. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max&#8209; Planck&#8209; Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797; the German original is as quoted in The Spontaneous Healing of Belief https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1 (2008) by Gregg Braden, p. 212; Braden mistranslates intelligenten Geist as "intelligent Mind", which is an obvious tautology.

Life, Intelligence, Study, Science

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)

Waiting, Making love, Bad luck, Flowers

“True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

People, Truth, Beauty, Feeling

“Spiritually evolved people, by virtue of their discipline, mastery and love, are people of extraordinary competence, and in their competence they are called on to serve the world, and in their love they answer the call.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Love, People, World

“By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

§ 1.33
Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
Source: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Indifference, Happiness

“He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Solitude

“Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Part 2, Book 1, Ch. 2
Variant translation: What makes night within us may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three (1874)
Context: Cimourdain was a pure-minded but gloomy man. He had "the absolute" within him. He had been a priest, which is a solemn thing. Man may have, like the sky, a dark and impenetrable serenity; that something should have caused night to fall in his soul is all that is required. Priesthood had been the cause of night within Cimourdain. Once a priest, always a priest.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.

Truth, Soul, Star, Night

“I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Hate

“Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons. Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults; just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions, but did not tell us to hate those who practice unwholesome actions.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Hate, Nature, Personality

“Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.”

Robert K. Merton book Social Theory and Social Structure

Source: Social Theory and Social Structure

Faith, Science

“In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except "Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it"? Money has become the grand test of virtue.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and Out in Paris and London

Money

“The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Death, Home, Evil

“How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt

Life, Children, People, Lie

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”

Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Variant: Patriotism is the vice of nations.

“We will be asked how, on our theory, justice can be a virtue and injustice a vice, since it will surely be difficult to show that any man whatsoever must need to be just as he needs the use of his hands and eyes, or needs prudence, courage and temperance? Before answering this question I shall argue that if it cannot be answered then justice can no longer be recommended as a virtue.”

Philippa Foot (1920–2010) British philosopher

"Moral Beliefs"

Justice, Courage, Question

“The new profession of public relations has grown up because of the increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent necessity for making the actions of one part of the public understandable to other sectors of the public. It is due, too, to the increasing dependence of organized power of all sorts upon public opinion. Governments, whether they are monarchical, constitutional, democratic or communist, depend upon acquiescent public opinion for the success of their efforts and, in fact, government is government only by virtue of public acquiescence. Industries, public utilities, educational movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product, whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged partner in all broad efforts.
The public relations counsel, then, is the agent who, working with modern media of communications and the group formations of society, brings an idea to the consciousness of the public.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 63

Life, Education, Communication, Idea

“Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for morality which human beings arbitrarily devise.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Third Notebook: Part Two
No Longer Human

“When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you to trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

41e–42a
Plato, Apology

Justice, Thinking

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

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XXII, lines 10–12.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Love, Appearance

“Whoever hammers a lump of iron, first decides what he is going to make of it, a scythe, a sword, or an axe. Even so we ought to make up our minds what kind of virtue we want to forge or we labour in vain.”

Anthony the Great (251–357) Christian saint, monk, and hermit

The Living Testament: The Essential Writings of Christianity Since the Bible (1985), p. 66.
From St. Athanasius' Life of St. Antony

“I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You'll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

People, World, Fear, Feeling

“Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Not Disraeli but La Rochefoucauld; it is Maxim 308 in his Reflections.
Misattributed

Men, People

“Consider your origin;
you were not born to live like brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto XXVI, lines 118–120.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Knowledge

“Neither the circle without the line, nor the line without the point, can be artificially produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and the Monad that all things commence to emerge in principle.
That which is affected at the periphery, however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central point.”

John Dee (1527–1608) English mathematican, astrologer and antiquary

Theorem II
Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

Way, Support

“Being the source of goodness, God, even after our failures, calls us anew, not effacing entirely from our mind the knowledge of good, even if we have turned away from virtue through sin. This is what God, at present, also does for Adam in calling him although he has hidden himself, saying to him: 'Adam, where art thou?' Adam, in fact, had been placed there by God for the purpose of working and guarding Paradise; he had received this place from Him to be his own. Having distanced himself from there by disobedience, it is proper that he should hear from God: 'Where art thou?”

Didymus the Blind (313–398) Coptic church theologian

God, Art, Failure, Knowledge

“Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Heart

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

God, Truth, World, Sadness

“Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,—
In part she is to blame that has been tried:
He comes too near that comes to be denied.”

Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) writer and poet from England

The Lady’s Resolve (1713). A fugitive piece, written on a window by Lady Montagu, after her marriage. Compare: "In part to blame is she, Which hath without consent bin only tride: He comes to neere that comes to be denide", Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613), A Wife, stanza 36.

Parting

“I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.”

George Chapman All Fools

Act I, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

Love, Spring, Nature, Sun

“This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other. They say in a single breath: "God and the liberty of man," "God and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity of men" — regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if God exists, all these things are condemned to non-existence. For, if God is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. In vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, do they represent their God as animated by the tenderest love of human liberty: a master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire to show himself, remains none the less always a master. His existence necessarily implies the slavery of all that is beneath him. Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty — by ceasing to exist.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)

Love, Men, God, Justice

“Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

As quoted in Queers in History : The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays (2009), by Keith Stern, p. 465.

“As far as socialism is concerned, it is not a heavenly message like Islam but a mere system for regulating the relations between man and his utilization of the means of production in this world. If we decide to regulate our national wealth, it is not against the essence of Islam. God has created man and has given him the faculty of mind to choose between good and bad, between virtue and vice. We have chose social justice instead of exploitation of man by man and this is how we can practically help the individual Muslim and direct him to [a] virtuous life. However, the reactionaries wanted to create a rift between socialism and Islam because socialism is not in their interest.”

Siad Barre (1919–1995) Head of State of Somalia

Speech (1972), as quoted by Ioan Myrddin (1980), A Modern History of Somalia, Wilture Enterprises (International) Ltd.

Life, God, World, Justice

“Her childhood, then her adolescence, had taught her patience, hope, silence and the easy manipulation of the weapons and virtues of all prisoners.”

Colette Chéri

Chéri (1920) pt. 2

Hope, Silence, Childhood, Patience

“My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 7.
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

Music, Search

“If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 185-186.

Love, Life, Children, Truth

“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

From a review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, New English Weekly (21 March 1940)

Life, Death, Pain, War

“Intuitive cognition is such that when some things are cognized, of which one inheres in the other, or one is spatially distant from the other, or exists in some relation to the other, immediately in virtue of that non-propositional cognition of those things, it is known if the thing inheres or does not inhere, if it is spatially distant or not, and the same for other true contingent propositions, unless that cognition is flawed or there is some impediment.”

William of Ockham (1285–1349) medieval philosopher and theologian

Opera Theologica (1986), edited by Gedeon Gal, Vol. I, p. 31.

Distant

“Virtue is the health of the soul.”

Aristo of Chios (-300) ancient greek philosopher

Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, fragment 359

Health, Soul

“Happiness does not fall out of the blue and dreams will not come true by themselves. We need to be down-to-earth and work hard. We should uphold the idea that working hard is the most honorable, noblest, greatest and most beautiful virtue.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in "Xi Jinping meets model workers" http://english.cntv.cn/20130501/102444.shtml in cctv.com English (1 May 2013). 2010s

Beauty, Dreams, Idea, Happiness

“Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

“Virtue with poverty didst thou prefer
To the possession of great wealth with vice.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XX, lines 26–27 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Wealth

“Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you are still less likely to believe.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

37e–38a
Plato, Apology

Life, Understanding

“[Interviewer:] What would you say is the most overrated virtue? [Dworkin:] Compliance and conformity…. [[B]eing] normal is seriously overrated.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Norah Vincent, Sex, Love and Politics, id., p. 40, col. 2

“Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Stobaeus, iv. 32a. 19
Quoted by Stobaeus

“A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)
Context: A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.

Dependency

“Man is born egotistical, a result of the conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

University of Havana address (2005)
Context: Man is born egotistical, a result of the conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues. Nature makes us do things instinctively; one of these is the instinct for survival which can lead to infamy, while on the other side, our conscience can lead us to great acts of heroism. It doesn’t matter what each one of us is like, how different we are from each other, but when we unite we become one.
It is amazing that in spite of the differences between human beings, they can become as one in a single instant or they can be millions, and they can be a million strong just through their ideas. Nobody followed the Revolution as a cult to anyone or because they felt personal sympathy with any one person. It is only by embracing certain values and ideas that an entire people can develop the same willingness to make sacrifices of any one of those who loyally and sincerely try to lead them toward their destiny.

Education, Nature

“Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 70
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

World, Knowledge

“Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy”
Sola virtus praestat gaudium perpetuum, securum; etiam si quid obstat, nubium modo intervenit, quae infra feruntur nec umquam diem vincunt.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Letter XXVII
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Context: Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

Peaceful, Peace, Joy

“There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.”

Yukio Mishima book Confessions of a Mask

Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 222.

“There is the world for you. Beauty, true beauty, is intangible. It is in the eye of the beholder. Something that we can lose at any moment, and the more you examine it, the more illusive it becomes. True happiness is virtue, and virtue is predicated on knowledge and righteous conduct.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

in The Alchemist of Happiness

World, Beauty, Knowledge, Happiness

“As humans, it is likely we shall periodically deviate from virtue as temptation continually lurks in the shadows and taunts us to succumb. Most digressions are minor and do not disrupt our lives unless we decide to live two of them.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1988

“It's great to be black in Hollywood. When a black actor does something, it seems new and different just by virtue of the fact that he's black.”

Will Smith (1968) American actor, film producer and rapper

"Will Smith" article in Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 edition), p. 406

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”

William Shakespeare All's Well That Ends Well

Source: All's Well That Ends Well

Life, Despair

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

“It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Spring

“Virtue? A fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Variant: Tis within ourselves that we are thus or thus
Source: Othello

“For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

World, Beauty, Change

“The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

“People who have no vices, have very few virtues.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

According to The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867) by F. B. Carpenter, Lincoln quoted this as having been said to him by a fellow-passenger in a stagecoach. See also "Washington during the War", Macmillan's Magazine 6:24 http://books.google.com/books?id=rB4AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA24&dq=folks (May 1862) Posthumous attributions Variant: It's my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues.

People

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Pleasure, Happiness

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtues fall.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Deep

“We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we percieve that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Variant: We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.
Source: Human, All Too Human

“Virtue lies in moderation”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“Assume a virtue, if you have it not.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

“Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is badly out of balance, in favor of men.”

Isabel Allende book Inés of My Soul

Source: Inés of My Soul

Women, Men, World, Courage

“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

As quoted in The Seven Deadly Sins (2000) by Steven Schwartz, p. 23

People, Problem

“I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by his heroism, virtue, and honour. I think the best these men can do is not talk about themselves anymore.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: The Pargiters

Men, Thinking

“no one ever gossips about the virtues of others”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s
Variant: No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
Source: On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926), Ch. 2: The Aims of Education, p. 50
Context: The instinctive foundation of the intellectual life is curiosity, which is found among animals in its elementary forms. Intelligence demands an alert curiosity, but it must be of a certain kind. The sort that leads village neighbours to try to peer through curtains after dark has no very high value. The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge but by malice: no one gossips about other people's secret virtues, but only about their secret vices. Accordingly most gossip is untrue, but care is taken not to verify it. Our neighbour's sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinise the evidence closely.

“… happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves…. The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement….”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Life, Effort, Suffering, Happiness

“Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/223/mode/2up On the Basis of Morality (1840) Source: The Basis of Morality

Love, Men, Justice, Confidence

“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Alexander Hamilton (28 August 1788) http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0432 1780s Context: I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am, with great sincerity & esteem, Dear Sir Your friend and Most obedient Hble Ser⟨vt⟩

Hope