Quotes about virtue (2023 quotes, page 5)

“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.”

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

Soul , Perfection , Sincerity

“It is the hour to be drunken! To escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Wine , Time

“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.”

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

The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.

Family , Knowledge , Heart , Personality

“Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Feeling , History

“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 (1911–1980) American journalist

Way , Imagination

“If anyone else asked that question, O He Who Is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of the disarming simplicity which is the fount of all virtue.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

Source: The Amulet of Samarkand

Fools , Question

“Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Life , Faith

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Dependency

“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Faith , Cheating

“Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for.”

Lauren Willig (1977) American author

Source: The Masque of the Black Tulip

Waiting , Patience

“Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Source: Memoirs of Hadrian

Personality

“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Education , Nature

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Wealth, War, and Wisdom

“To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Letter to Anthony Collins (29 October 1703) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1726#lf0128-09_head_098

Love , Truth , World , Parting

“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

People

“Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Courage , Learning

“FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.”

Francesco Petrarca book De remediis utriusque fortunae

De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II

Beauty

“When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Source: Sister Carrie

Home , Girl

“Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Boy , Thinking , Learning

“Obscurity is never a virtue.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

Hate , Feeling , Envy

“Patience is not a virtue. It is an achievement.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Patience

“The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Understanding

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Happy , Good Morning , Life , Nature

“Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Pain , Help

“Patience is not my dominant virtue.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

D'Artagnan

Patience

“Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination-- devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues -- which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Family , Imagination , Loyalty

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Family , Family , Home

“A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Suicide , Evil

“To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love , Understanding , Thinking , Christ

“I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Men

“There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.”

Tadeusz Borowski book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Source: This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Truth , Beauty , Silence

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Address on The Method of Nature http://www.infomotions.com/alex2/authors/emerson-ralph/emerson-method-734/ (1841)

Love , Time , Drawing

“One should always be drunk. That's all that matters… But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Wine

“Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace.
Grace is a little girl
Who would not wash her face.”

Dick King-Smith (1922–2011) English writer of children's books

Source: Lady Daisy

Girl , Patience

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Courageous , Courage

“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Life , Learning

“Desires should never be justified,' Tehol said, wagging a finger. 'All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence.”

Steven Erikson (1959) Canadian fantasy author

“Fix your mind on truth, hold firm to virtue, rely on loving kindness, and find your recreation in the Arts.”

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

Source: The Analects

Love , Truth , Art

“You have to choose the best, every day, without compromise… guided by your own virtue and highest ambition”

Philippa Gregory (1954) English novelist

“As far as I'm concerned I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed to Einstein in Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography by Carl Seeling (1956), p. 114 http://books.google.com/books?id=VCbPAAAAMAAJ&q=%22silent+vice%22#search_anchor. Einstein is said to have made this remark "when someone in his company grew angry about a mutual acquaintance's moral decline".
Attributed in posthumous publications

“That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be.”

James Jones book From Here to Eternity

Source: From Here to Eternity

“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Fortune of the Republic (1878)

“The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes

Appearance , Time , Patience

“She thinks before she acts. Or more properly, she thinks instead of acts. A character flaw, not a virtue.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Thinking

“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.”

Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) English novelist

Source: What Am I Doing Here?

“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Fashion

“A girl can stand just so much virtue.”

Loraine Despres (1938) Novelist/screen writer

The Southern Belle's Handbook: Sissy LeBlanc's Rules to Live By

Girl

“Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.”

J.M. Coetzee book Waiting for the Barbarians

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians

People , Dependency

“Evil was seductive and easy, and virtue was difficult and unappreciated.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Gates of Paradise

Evil

“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

“I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.”

Agatha Christie book Peril at End House

Source: Peril at End House

Thinking , Loyalty

“Silence is the virtue of a fool.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book VI, xxxi
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Fools , Silence

“Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking of existence.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Journals of Ayn Rand

“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

As quoted in USA Today (5 March 1988)
Variant:
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
As quoted in Diversity : Leaders Not Labels (2006) by Stedman Graham, p. 224

Courageous , Courage

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

John Milton book Areopagitica

Source: Areopagitica

“And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

People , Secret , Happiness

“He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“That is the secret of happiness and virtue -- liking what you've got to do.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Secret , Happiness

“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX, 16

Feeling , Animals , Dependency , Happiness

“Virtue (or the man of virtue) is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.”

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

Source: The Analects, Chapter IV

“People with virtue must speak out; People who speak are not all virtuous.”

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

People

“We speak of the matter [of this science] in the sense of its being what the science is about. This is called by some the subject of the science, but more properly it should be called its object, just as we say of a virtue that what it is about is its object, not its subject. As for the object of the science in this sense, we have indicated above that this science is about the transcendentals. And it was shown to be about the highest causes. But there are various opinions about which of these ought to be considered its proper object or subject. Therefor, we inquire about the first. Is the proper subject of metaphysics being as being, as Avicenna claims, or God and the Intelligences, as the Commentator, Averroes, assumes.”
loquimur de materia "circa quam" est scientia, quae dicitur a quibusdam subiectum scientiae, uel magis proprie obiectum, sicut et illud circa quod est uirtus dicitur obiectum uirtutis proprie, non subiectum. De isto autem obiecto huius scientiae ostensum est prius quod haec scientia est circa transcendentia; ostensum est autem quod est circa altissimas causas. Quod autem istorum debeat poni proprium eius obiectum, uariae sunt opiniones. Ideo de hoc quaeritur primo utrum proprium subiectum metaphysicae sit ens in quantum ens (sicut posuit Auicenna) uel Deus et Intelligentiae (sicut posuit Commentator Auerroes.)

Duns Scotus (1265–1308) Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed

Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis, as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician. p. 20-21

God , Intelligence , Sense , Science

“Patriotism in the female s*x is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence. Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (17 June 1782)

Age , Law , Sex , History

“Education…is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Though sometimes attributed to Addison, this actually comes from a speech delivered by the Irish lawyer Charles Phillips in 1817, in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, published in Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators (1834) pp. 91-92.
Misattributed

Education , Home , Solitude

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Pleasure , World , Peace , Law

“Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Men

A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)

“Relativism, positivism, and nihilism — modern doctrines which mock wisdom and scorn virtue — have at the dawn of the twenty-first century come to dominate.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Before In History (2004)

Wisdom

“He knew that the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness is not a necessary virtue.”

Arthur Symons book The Symbolist Movement in Literature

Gérard de Nerval.
The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)

Beauty , Perfection

“Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.”

James Waddel Alexander (1804–1859) American Presbyterian minister and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 611.

Men , God

“[Atheism] believes that truth for truth's sake is the highest ideal and that virtue is its own reward.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

The Philosophy of Atheism

Truth

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Ancient Rome

No printed sources exist for this prior to 2009, and this seems to have been an attribution which arose on the internet, as indicated by web searches and rationales provided at "Marcus Aurelius and source checking" at Three Shouts on a Hilltop (14 June 2011) http://threeshoutsonahilltop.blogspot.com/2011/06/marcus-aurelius-and-source-checking.html
This quote may be a paraphrase of Meditations, Book II:
Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.
But to go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil;
but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence?
But Gods there are, undoubtedly, and they regard human affairs; and have put it wholly in our power, that we should not fall into what is truly evil
Misattributed

Love , Life , God , Memory

“A very bold political measure of Lycurgus is his redistribution of the land. For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

People , Disease , Affliction , Envy

“In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"Three Versions of Judas"
Ficciones (1944)

Confidence , Courage

“We believe in a democratic society by governments freely and periodically elected by the people… We believe, in the virtue of hard work and that those who work harder in society should be given greater rewards… We believe that the world does not owe us a living and that we have to earn our keep." Adapted from speech by S Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at a dinner in honour of His Excellency Mr. Hans Dietrich Genscher, Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam (1915–2006) Early life

20 April 1977.

People , World

“Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights
The fairest feelings of the opening heart,
Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil
Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love,
And judgment cease to wage unnatural war
With passion's unsubduable array.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Queen Mab

Canto V
Queen Mab (1813)

Love , War , Feeling , Spring

“The Chartered ccountants by virtue of their qualifications, experience and training can render valuable services in these difficult times in areas which are vital to economic and industrial growth. It should be the duty of the members of the profession in the Northern India Regional Council, apart from examining accuracy of transactions, the modern auditor should also look into the propriety of such transactions… the profession has to develop uniform accounting principles, standard terminologies and precise definitions of various accounting concepts. This was desirable from the point of view of providing reliable information in the financial statements for the benefit of the intending investors, members of the public, government agencies and financial institutions. This will enable individuals and organisations to form a fairly accurate judgment of the financial position by a study of the audited financial statements of companies.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

Source: From the Desk of the Chairman... http://nirc-icai.org/Newsletter/NewsletterFebruary2012.pdf, Northern India Regional council of the ICAI, News Letter, February 2012

Study , Time , Training

“Such a tendency has the slave-trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men—No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! For it raises the owner to a state as far above man as it depresses the slave below it; and, with all the presumption of human pride, sets a distinction between them, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration! Yet how mistaken is the avarice even of the planters? Are slaves more useful by being thus humbled to the condition of brutes, than they would be if suffered to enjoy the privileges of men? The freedom which diffuses health and prosperity throughout Britain answers you—No. When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!—An assertion at once impious and absurd. Why do you use those instruments of torture? Are they fit to be applied by one rational being to another? And are ye not struck with shame and mortification, to see the partakers of your nature reduced so low? But, above all, are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment? Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? […] But by changing your conduct, and treating your slaves as men, every cause of fear would be banished. They would be faithful, honest, intelligent and vigorous; and peace, prosperity, and happiness, would attend you.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. V
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Men , God , War , Health

“But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

House of Chains (2002)

Heart

“Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

CXXIV, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Lady H—, lines 3-6
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

Life , Lie , Beauty

“I do not think there is any single thing more important for our people, and for those who form public opinion, than to keep our people immune, so far as they can be so kept, from the virus of either Communism or Fascism. Our constitution has been evolved… There are some people who speak wildly and loosely about sudden and fundamental changes. Look out for them, and remember that our party, full of ideas of progress to-day as any other party that exists, has always stood, in Disraeli's words, "for the maintenance of the Constitution."… any attempt at sudden constitutional changes of a fundamental nature would not be maintaining the Constitution… the whole virtue of our people… has been the way in which we have adapted ourselves, and adapted the instruments that we use to give effect to our wishes; and we have adapted ourselves without bloodshed and without hatred among ourselves. Far, far the most important thing that we have to do is to keep this country at least… secure from those strange crises that to-day are rushing round the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Bewdley Unionist Association in Worcester (10 April 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 102-104.
1937

People , World , Way , Communication

“The natural sciences did not advance in virtue of the universal appeal of rationality. Their theological, classicist and metaphysical opponents were not converted but displaced. All the ancient universities had to be compelled by outside pressure to make room for science; and most nations began to appreciate it only after succumbing to the weapons produced with its aid. To cut a long story short, scientific method has triumphed throughout the world because it bestowed upon those who practised it power over those who did not. Sorcery lost not because of any waning of its intrinsic appeal to the human mind, but because it failed to match the power created by science. But, though abandoned as a tool for controlling nature, incantations remain more effective for manipulating crowds than logical arguments, so that in the conduct of human affairs sorcery continues to be stronger than science.”

Stanislav Andreski (1919–2007) Polish-British sociologist

Social Sciences as Sorcery (1972)

World , Nature , Universe , Science

“I’m sick of hearing how far we’ve come. I’m sick of hearing how in some cases women are superseding men, progressing to positions of middle and upper management. Above all, I’m sick of hearing about the pipeline, about the path to the top supposedly thick with women who will, in the fullness of time, be rewarded for their patience and virtue. The following figures speak for themselves: Three percent of Fortune 500 companies are headed by women; 16.8 percent of members of the U. S. Congress are women; 7 percent of tenured engineering faculty in four-year institutions are women. The fact is that so far as leadership is concerned, women in nearly every realm are hardly any better off than they were a generation ago.”

Barbara Kellerman (1939) American academic

Barbara Kellerman in Harvard Business Review; Cited in " Quote of the week: Barbara Kellerman http://theweek.com/articles/494754/quote-week-barbara-kellerman," at theweek.com, April 30, 2010.

Women , Men , Time , Patience

“Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest:
Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain;
And virtue sank the deeper in his breast:
Such profit he by envy could obtain.”

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl

"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest", line 1

Envy

“A man can enjoy a terrestrial paradise after eighty, but it is not to be obtained, except by strict temperance in food and drink, virtues acceptable to God, and friends to reason.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

God , Food , Drink

“As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). p. 366.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Life , Knowledge

“The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.”

Yoshida Kenkō (1283–1350) japanese writer

38
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)

Learning

“My son, forbearance is a great virtue; there's no other like it.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[In the Company of the Holy Mother, 124-125]

“If "safeguards of individual liberty" do not have "any intrinsic worth", then neither does individual liberty. And if individual liberty has no intrinsic worth, neither does individual life. It is impossible to imagine a more complete denial of President Bush's proclamation of the sanctity of human life, or of his assertion of an "essential human dignity attached to all persons by virtue of their very existence." This is not only legal positivism, it is nihilism. It is not only a denial of any moral foundation of constitutionalism, it is a denial of any moral foundation of political community.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

Life , Imagination , Communication , Personality

“When the fight comes, always endeavour to chase the enemy around to your left side. Chase him towards awkward places, and try to keep him with his back to awkward places. When the enemy gets into an inconvenient position, do not let him look around, but conscientiously chase him around and pin him down. In houses, chase the enemy into the thresholds, lintels, doors, verandas, pillars, and so on, again not letting him see his situation.
Always chase the enemy into bad footholds, obstacles at the side, and so on, using the virtues of the place to establish predominant positions from which to fight. You must research and train diligently in this.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Fight , Housing , Training

“All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is that straightness of back.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 170.

Thinking

“Mnemonists, people with freakish memories and no other virtues, were capable of playing dazzling games, dismaying and confusing the other participants by their rapid muster of countless ideas. In the course of time such displays of virtuosity fell more and more under a strict ban, and contemplation became a highly important component of the Game. Ultimately, for the audiences at each Game it became the main thing. This was the necessary turning toward the religious spirit. What had formerly mattered was following the sequences of ideas and the whole intellectual mosaic of a Game with rapid attentiveness, practiced memory, and full understanding. But there now arose the demand for a deeper and more spiritual approach. After each symbol conjured up by the director of a Game, each player was required to perform silent, formal meditation on the content, origin, and meaning of this symbol, to call to mind intensively and organically its full purport. The members of the Order and of the Game associations brought the technique and practice of contemplation with them from their elite schools, where the art of contemplation and meditation was nurtured with the greatest care. In this way the hieroglyphs of the Game were kept from degenerating into mere empty signs.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

People , School , Art , Way

“There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Letter to Hester Thrale (12 April 1781) http://books.google.com/books?id=184WAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA736

Love , Wisdom

“Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that, in proportion as the working-classes increase in intelligence, knowledge, and all virtue, in that same proportion their acute angle (which makes them physically terrible) shall increase also and approximate to the comparatively harmless angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal and formidable of the soldier class — creatures almost on a level with women in their lack of intelligence — it is found that, as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power of penetration itself.

How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible — by a little artificial compression or expansion on the part of the State physicians — to make some of the more intelligent leaders of a rebellion perfectly Regular, and to admit them at once into the privileged classes; a much larger number, who are still below the standard, allured by the prospect of being ultimately ennobled, are induced to enter the State Hospitals, where they are kept in honourable confinement for life; one or two alone of the more obstinate, foolish, and hopelessly irregular are led to execution.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland

Life , Wisdom , Women , Law

“By virtue of its innermost intention, and like all questions about language, structuralism escapes the classical history of ideas which already supposes structuralism’s possibility, for the latter naively belongs to the province of language and propounds itself within it. Nevertheless, by virtue of an irreducible region of irreflection and spontaneity within it, by virtue of the essential shadow of the undeclared, the structuralist phenomenon will deserve examination by the historian of ideas. For better or for worse. Everything within this phenomenon that does not in itself transparently belong to the question of the sign will merit this scrutiny; as will everything within it that is methodologically effective, thereby possessing the kind of infallibil-ity now ascribed to sleepwalkers and formerly attributed to instinct, which was said to be as certain as it was blind.”

Jacques Derrida book Writing and Difference

Force and Signification
Writing and Difference (1978)

History , Idea , Question

“Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.
He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.
He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

People , History , Revenge , Nature

“Virtue extends our days: he lives two lives who relives his past with pleasure.”
Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus. Hoc est Vivere bis vita posse priore frui.

Martial book Epigrammata

Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus. Hoc est
Vivere bis vita posse priore frui.
X, 23. Alternatively translated as "The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For he lives twice who can at once employ / The present well, and e'en the past enjoy", Alexander Pope, Imitation of Martial.
Epigrams (c. 80 – 104 AD)

Pleasure , Past

Quotes about virtue page 5

Quotes about virtue
page 5