Quotes about Virtue

Self-sacrifice, we drool, is a virtue. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feeling? The independence of his thoughts? But these are a man's supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain.

Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge.

Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.

Like Daniel she enteres the lions' den, but lacking Daniel's pure and unblemished soul, Ada is spiced with the flavors of vice that make for a tasty meal. Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

It is character that communicates most eloquently...In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

Only basic goodness gives life to technique.

Many people with secondary greatness—that is, social recognition for their talents—lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you'll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently.

Only basic goodness gives life to technique.

Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty.

There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living.

When we value correct principles, we have truth—a knowledge of things as they are.