Inspirational Quotes on Virtue

“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”

“Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.”

“Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.”

“Sordid and infamous sensuality, the most dreadful evil that issued from the box of Pandora, corrupts the entire heart and eradicates every virtue.”

“There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.”

“True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.”

“The most virtuous of all men, says Plato, is he that contents himself with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.”

“I will tell you what to hate. Hate hypocrisy; hate cant; hate intolerance, oppression, injustice, Pharisaism; hate them as Christ hated them - with a deep, abiding, God-like hatred.”

“What the world calls virtue is a name and a dream without Christ. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer's cross and in the power of his resurrection.”

“Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.”

“Gratitude is the mother of all the virtues.”

“The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.”

“Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.”

“Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.”

“Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path.”

“The virtue of a coward is suspicion.”

“The aggregate happiness of society, which is best promoted by the practise of a virtuous policy, is, or ought to be, the end of all government.”

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”

“The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.”