Quotes about Virtue

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

Humility is the real Christian virtue," says Nouwen. "When we come to realize that . . . only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives.

The true test of a man's spirituality is not his ability to speak, as we are apt to think, but rather his ability to bridle his tongue.

There are far more kind and honest people than there are courageous people.

While a pure mind may be a saintly ideal, for the rest of us mortals controlling our behavior is an enormous enough achievement.

Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society can not survive if it calls immoral things moral.

The most important thing to understand when it comes to our baser parts is not only how normal and natural it is to have them but that there is nothing wrong in having them. Bad is doing bad, not thinking bad (there are exceptions—see the next chapter), and it is certainly not merely having bad tendencies.

Virginity can be lost by a thought.

Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure's sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue.

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.