Virtue is more to a man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.
CONFUCIUS, The Wisdom of Confucius
If you have performed an act of great and disinterested virtue, conceal it; if you publish it, you will neither be believed here, nor rewarded hereafter.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, leter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, leter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, leter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
Light may be produced by candle, by oil, by gas, by electricity: warmth by wood, by coal, by steam. As it would be foolish for the user of one means to disparage all the others, so 'tis foolish to fret because the manner in which others are virtuous differs from ours.
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
CONFUCIUS, The Wisdom of Confucius
- Virtue!--to be good and just--
- Every heart, when sifted well,
- Is a clot of warmer dust,
- Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
ALFRED TENNYSON, The Vision of Sin
Virtue is admirable, but boring.
JOHN TWELVE HAWKS, The Traveler
To struggle for virtue, is to be virtuous.
Many a man gets a big reputation for Virtue and Morality, when if the truth were known, the poor boob was simply scared of getting caught.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES, Poems and Paragraphs
As the flower, when plucked for enjoyment, begins to wither, so does virtue practiced for reward begin to vanish.
- Virtue!--to be good and just--
- Every heart, when sifted well,
- Is a clot of warmer dust,
- Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
ALFRED TENNYSON, The Vision of Sin
As a good tree produces good fruit; even so does a virtuous soul produce pure thoughts.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY, Proverbs
The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
There is no road or ready way to virtue.
He who sows virtue reaps glory.
LEONARDO DA VINCI, Thoughts on Art and Life
Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general: for one link being wanting, the chain is defective.
WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude
If virtue promises good fortune and tranquility and happiness, certainly also the progress towards virtue is progress towards each of these things.
Virtue has more admirers than followers.
NORMAN MACDONALD, Maxims and Moral Reflections
- Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
- And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
JOHN DRYDEN, Imitation of Horace
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