Quotes about Virtue

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.

No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.

Goodness—what defines a good person. Keep to it in everything you do.

And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can't even meet their own standards.

Anywhere you can lead your life, you can lead a good one.

It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.

To the best of my judgment, when I look at the human character I see no virtue placed there to counter justice. But I see one to counter pleasure: self-control.

The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling principle makes all things work together for good, but for the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature. In the individual it is virtue alone which enables him to do this; as Providence rules the universe, so virtue in the soul must rule man.

The truly fortunate person has created his own good fortune through good habits of the soul, good intentions, and good actions.

The Stoic makes no differentiation between a small act of kindness by a simple person and a great act of virtue from a learned sage. Virtue is virtue, and in both cases the result is happiness for the one who is virtuous.

Justice: so that you'll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.

It is precisely its unorthodox touches—its intimation of the idea of a personal god, its flashes of vulnerability and pain, its unwavering commitment to virtue above pleasure and to tranquillity above happiness, its unmistakable stamp of an uncompromisingly honest soul seeking the light of grace in a dark world—that lend the work its special power to charm and inspire.