Inspirational Quotes on Virtue

“Half our virtue arises from our being out of the way of temptation.”

“Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.”

“Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.”

“Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.”

“The blush is nature's alarm at the approach of sin, and her testimony to the dignity of virtue.”

“How weak a thing is gentility, if it wants virtue!”

“Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.”

“In conversation use some, but not too much ceremony; it teaches others to be courteous, too. Demeanors are commonly paid back in their own coin.”

“Vices are as truly contrary to each other as to virtue.”

“To love God is the greatest of virtues; to be loved by God is the greatest of blessings.”

“Being virtuous is no feat once temptation ceases.”

“Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.”

“God seeth different abilities and frailties of men, which may move His goodness to be merciful to their different improvements in virtue.”

“We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, and so live on and in our own poverty and weakness - today pleased and comforted with the seeming firmness and strength of our own pious tempers and fancying ourselves to be somewhat. Tomorrow, fallen into our own mire, we are dejected, but not humbled; we grieve, but it is only the grief of pride at the seeing our perfection not to be such as we had vainly imagined. And thus it will be, till the whole turn of our minds be so changed that we as fully see and know our inability to have any goodness of our own as to have a life of our own.”

“To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.”

“Beauty without virtue is like a flower without fragrance.”

“Salvation does not depend upon outward things, whether they are many or few, small or great, splendid or lowly, glorious or mean, but upon the soul's virtue, upon faith, hope, love, brotherliness, knowledge, gentleness, humility and truth, of which salvation is the prize.”

“Wherefore also Cleanthes, in the second book, On Pleasure, says that Socrates everywhere teaches that the just man and the happy are one and the same, and execrated the first man who separated the just from the useful, as having done an impious thing. For those are in truth impious who separate the useful from that which is right' according to the law.”

“There are thousands who are opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advances from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and a patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.”

“To confess uprightness in one of the opposite party seemed to most men to involve treachery to their own.”