Virtue quotes
Austen Jane 1775-1817
Pride and Prejudice
Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable ... one false step involves her in endless ruin.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
‘The Antitheta of Things'
Silence is the virtue of fools.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
Essays „Of Adversity'
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
Essays ‘Of Marriage and the Single Life'
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the heroical virtue.
Bolingbroke 1st Viscount 1678-1751
Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters
The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.
Bonaparte Napoleon 1822-1891
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance on fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
Burke Edmund 1729-1797
Observations ...on the Present State of Nation
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Butler Samuel 1835-1902
It is the of vice to keep virtue within reasonable grounds.
Butler Samuel 1835-1902
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed
with some commoner but more durable metal.
Camus Albert 1913-1960
I know myself too well to believe in pure virtue.
Dryden John 1631-1700
The Indian Emperor
Repentance is the virtue of weak minds.
Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882
Essays
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only
way to have a friend is to be one.
Goldsmith Sir James 1933-1997
Tolerance is a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbours of tolerance are apathy and weakness.
Goldsmith Oliver 1730-1774
The Good-Natured Man
We must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the fault without eradicating the virtue.
Goldsmith Oliver 1730-1774
The Vicar of Wakefield
The virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.
Goldwater Barry 1909-
(accepting the presidential nomination)
I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice! And
let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Johnson Samuel 1709-1784
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is
always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
Kingsley Charles 1819-1875
Health and Education
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with
the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.
Kingsley Charles 1819-1875
Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.
La Rochefoucauld François Duc de 1613-1680
Maxims
Hypocrisy is a tribute which vice pays to virtue.
Langland William c.1330-1400
The Vision of Piers Plowman
Suffraunce is a soverayn virtue, and a swift vengeaunce.
Who suffreth moore than God?
Marie Queen of Rumania
A woman's virtue ought indeed to be great:
since it often has to suffice for two.
Marlowe Christopher 1564-1593
Tamburlaine the Great
Virtue is the fount whence honour springs.
Massinger Philip 1583-1640
The Bashful Lover
Ambition, in a private man a vice,
Is in a prince the virtue.
Mill John Stuart 1806-1873
The Subjection of Women
The true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freely concede to everyone else; regarding command of any kind as an exceptional necessity, and in all cases a temporary one.
Milton John 1608-1674
Comus
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk ...
Milton John 1608-1674
Comus
Against the threats
Of malice or of sorcery, or that power
Which erring men call chance, this I hold firm,
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled.
Moliére 1622-1673
The Misanthrope
What's needed in this world is an accommodating sort of virtue.
Montagu Lady Mary Wortley 1689-1762
The Plain Dealer
Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide:
In part she is to blame, who has been tried,
He comes too near, that comes to be denied.
Montaigne Michel de 1533-1592
Essays
Virtue shuns ease as a companion ... It demands a rough and thorny path.
Montaigne Michel de 1533-1592
When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.
Mortimer John 1923-
The virtue of much literature is that it is dangerous and may do you extreme harm.
Nietzsche Friedrich 1844-1900
Ascetic: one who makes a necessity of virtue.
Pasternak Boris 1890-1960
Doctor Zhivago
I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless
and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.
Persius AD 34-62
Satires
Let them recognize virtue and rot for having lost it.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
Epistles to Several Persons ‘To a Lady'
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.
Robespierre Maximilien 1758-1794
Wickedness is the root of despotism as virtue is the essence of the Republic.
Ruskin John 1819-1900
The beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral and intellectual virtue expressed by it.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
The Merchant of Venice
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
Shakespeare William 1564-1616
Richard II
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
Shaw George Bernard 1856-1950
Man and Superman
What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?
Socrates 469-399 BC
In Plato - Apology
Virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and
all other good things to man, both to the individual and to the state.
Spinoza Baruch 1632-1677
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
Surtees R.S. 1805-1864
The Analysis of the Hunting Field
More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.
Swinburne Algernon Charles 1837-1909
‚Dolores"
Change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
For the raptures and roses of vice.
Tawney R.H. 1880-1962
The Acquisitive Society
The characteristic virtue of Englishmen is power of sustained practical
activity and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of
that activity by reference to principles.
Twain Mark 1835-1910
There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and
a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.
Vauvenargues Marquis de 1715-1747
Vice stirs up war; virtue fights.
Vauvenargues Marquis de 1715-1747
If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.
Walpole Horace 1717-1797
Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.