Quotes about Virtue

A wise man is never cheated, a virtuous man is never worried and a courageous man is never afraid.

Without malefactors the world of the righteous is robbed of all meaning.

No, Professor, it aint nothin like that. You dont have to be virtuous. You just has to be quiet. I cant speak for the Lord but the experience I've had leads me to believe that he'll speak to anybody that'll listen. You damn sure aint got to be virtuous.

There wasn't any virtue in it. The drinking or the quittin? Either one. There aint no virtue in quittin what you aint able any longer to do in the first place.

And it might be well to assume and state openly that other people have the virtue you want them to develop. Give them a fine reputation to live up to, and they will make prodigious efforts rather than see you disillusioned.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time...of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here...It is in the world, but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.

The meritorious ground of justification is not faith; we are not justified on account of our faith, considered as a virtuous holy act or state of mind. Nor are our works of any kind the ground of justification. Nothing done by us or wrought in us satisfies the demands of justice, or can be the ground or reason of the declaration that justice as far as it concerns us is satisfied. The ground of justification is the righteousness of Christ.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.

Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes.

find God in the willingness of so many people to do the right thing, even when the right thing is difficult, expensive, or unappreciated, and to reject the wrong thing no matter how tempting or profitable.

Good people will do good things, lots of them, because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are human.