Quotes about virtue

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“What the virtues are to existential perfection, truths are to intellectual perfection; virtue is essentially simplicity, inward beauty, generosity, whereas truth, for its part, lies entirely in the discernment between the Real and the illusory or between the Absolute and the contingent.”

“If we must love God, and love him more than ourselves and our neighbor, it is because love exists before us and because we are issued from it; we love by virtue of our very existence.”

“The premature deaths of infants have nothing in them to suggest the thought that one who so terminates his life is subject to some grievous misfortune, any more than they are to be put on a level with the deaths of those who have purified themselves in this life by every kind of virtue.”

“Virtue is achieved by its seekers not without a struggle; nor is abstinence from the paths of pleasure a painless process to human nature.”

“Magic is the divinity of man conquered by science in union with faith; the true Magi are Men-Gods, in virtue of their intimate union with the divine principle.”

“There was a time when evilness did not exist, and there will be a time when it will no more exist, whereas there was no time when virtue did not exist, and there will be no time when it will not exist. For the germs of virtue are impossible to destroy.”

“Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.”

“Feelings are better with a bit of depth. Many revolutionary leaps and achievements are accompanied by the colors of romance. Being able to remember the past with sentimentality is therefore a type of virtue. Regarding melancholy, I don’t like this emotion.”

“Even as there is no virtue which is wanting to the busy man, so there is no vice which does not bear the idle company.”

“When the school children of Australia are told more truths about their own country, and fewer lies about the virtues of Royalty, the day will be near when we can place our own national flag in one of the proudest places among the ensigns of the world.”

“[…] there is no love,
That merits such high christening, but is built
Firm upon some foundation out of sight;
God, country, virtue, something not ourself,
To which ourself is nothing, save the proof
Of its invisible sureness.”

“Because we cannot by ourselves give sufficient thanks to God, our creator, for the grace, honour, health and success that He has granted us thus far, nor amass sufficient merit to secure the continuation of His grace in the future… to beseech God to continue to raise us in virtue and good customs, to govern our dominions and subjects in peace, union and concord, and to guide our affairs to His honour, our wellbeing, and the prosperity, utility and tranquility of our said dominions and subjects.”

“More generally, the individual who gets added income as a result of a general inflationary movement atributes it not to larger economic causes but to his own virtue and diligence.”

“Both truth and falsity rule the world. Falsity by virtue of numbers and truth by virtue of control.”

“It is so depressing to watch, almost on a daily basis, the erasure of great men by know-nothing non-entities who can build nothing, create nothing, do nothing but destroy all that does not conform to the ever shifting pieties of present-tense virtue-signalling.”

“The highest morality is one in which divinity is added to our humanity. This is the divine attributes of God expressed in the created virtues of man.”

“A monk is one who is conditioned by virtues as others are by pleasures.”

“For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.”

“But soon this saving virtue appeared to me in our disgraceful dilemma: Realization that any true cultural significance our American free society could know lay in the proper use of the machine as a tool and used only as a tool.”

“How difficult people appreciate the virtues of others. On the contrary how easily people are infected by the virus of hatred.”

“The ego tends to put itself above everything that is philosophically corrupt and destructive. Can we accept the idea that the ego must accept the consequences of what it has done? It must take responsibility for the motive behind it. If that motive is virtue and goodness, then we have placed the ego in the right proportion. But on the contrary, if it denies the human traits that collectively uphold moral ethics, law, justice and honesty, then it will easily fall into the hole that it has dug for itself.”

“Those who do not have enough patience will not reap the fruits of wisdom. This is because the tree of virtue takes time to bear fruit.”