Quotes about Virtue

When private virtue is hazarded on the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.

Men are only as great as they are kind.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.112 They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.

Mona Simpson, rose to honor him at his memorial service, that's not what she focused on. Yes, she talked about his work and his work ethic. But mostly she raised these as manifestations of his passions. "Steve worked at what he loved," she said. What really moved him was love. "Love was his supreme virtue," she said, "his god of gods. "When [his son] Reed was born, he began gushing and

To enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought, has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.

Both excess and defect are alike prejudicial to moral virtue.

The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.

Happiness is a thing which calls for honor rather than for praise.

The precepts of the law may be comprehended under these three points: to live honestly, to hurt no man willfully, and to render every man his due carefully.