1,046 Quotes About Virtue

I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.

Falsehood of a good man is better than truth of a bad one.

To live with integrity, it is important to know what's right and what's wrong, to be educated morally. However, merely KNOWING is not enough. Virtuous character matters more than moral knowledge. The reason is simple: like the self-confessing apostle Paul in Romans 7, most of those who do wrong know what's right but find themselves irresistibly attracted to its opposite. Faith idles when character shrivels

Do not judge a man by where he stands, but how he reached there.

For present-day politicians there are only political points to be made from such statements, and the larger the sin the larger the outrage, the larger the apology and the larger the potential political gain for sorrow expressed. Through such statements political leaders can gain the benefits of magnanimity without the stain of involvement: the person making the apology had done nothing wrong and all the people who could have received the apology are dead.

The cardinal virtues are self-control, moderation, kindness, generosity, justice, and truthfulness tempered by discretion

Light is not light that seeks light - goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage - virtue is not virtue that seeks reward.

A good deed is never lost.

To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action of concession on his behalf. That is a sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue [...]