Virtue Quotes

Virtue is debased by self-justification.[La vertu s’avilit à se justifier.]

Virtue and Happiness are Mother and Daughter.

You cannot have Liberty in this World without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the Slavery of that half of the Human Race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.[La vertu a un voile, le vice a un masque.]

To be proud of Knowledge, is to be blind with Light; to be proud of Virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.

Poverty often deprives a Man of all Spirit and Virtue: ‘Tis hard for an empty Bag to stand upright.

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

It cannot be denied that tact is a virtue. The sort of person who always manages to blurt out the tactless thing, apparently by accident, is a person full of dislike of his or her fellow creatures. But although tact is a virtue, it is very closely allied to certain vices; the line between tact and hypocrisy is a very narrow one. I think the distinction comes in the motive: when it is kindliness that makes us wish to please, our tact is the right sort; when it is fear of offending, or desire to obtain some advantage by flattery, our tact is apt to be of a less amiable kind.

Idleness is the Dead Sea, that swallows all Virtues.

He is ill cloth’d, who is bare of Virtue.