Top 111 Virtues Quotes

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it.

If we strive to strengthen our body now; to overcome our faults; to cultivate new virtues; the Sun of our next life will rise under much more auspicious conditions than those under which we now live, and thus we may truly rule our stars and master our fate.

One of the market’s virtues, and the reason it enables so much peaceful interaction and cooperation among such a great variety of peoples, is that it demands of its participants only that they observe a relatively few basic principles, among them honesty, the sanctity of contracts, and respect for private property.

The characters you refer to as predatory and unsavory are useful. They’re the ones who make a novel into a thriller. They’re active, and most of the common virtues, the signs of a good person, are not.

For centuries, the question of men needing to comprehend women simply didn’t arise. Men were valued according to how they measured up to the manly virtues.

When I create a character, particularly my central character, I want someone who is interesting and feels real and who might have quite a few virtues but is unlikely to be perfect, who hasn’t necessarily made all the right choices.

When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don’t exist because you’ve crushed anyone’s desire to do the right thing with all these incentives.

I have a deep fascination with human nature, with all its virtues and all its defects.

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.

You can’t have virtue without sin. What I’m after is having my characters’ virtues defined by how they operate in a very sinful environment. That’s how you test people.

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.

Sometimes we may learn more from a man’s errors, than from his virtues.

Chinese culture has a lot of virtues that are tremendously valuable to not only us as Asian-Americans, but also the world in general.

It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster.

Even a pacifist should admire the military virtues.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

My cinema is an extension of myself. A sort of life-testimony of my vital experience, with my few virtues and my numerous limitations.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us.

That future depends on the values of self-government, our sense of duty, loyalty, self-confidence and regard for the common good. We are a diverse country, and getting more diverse. And these virtues are what keep this great country together.

I realised I had an issue with my mobile phone use when a friend started explaining the virtues of the Fast 800 diet and, while still engaged in the conversation, I pulled out my phone and ordered the book before they had finished their sentence.

The word of God is full of sad and grave counsel, full of the knowledge of God, of examples of virtues, and of correction of vices, of the end of this life, and of the life to come.

One of the great business virtues of high publishing was that it was a difficult business to enter. You had to stand for something.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

I courted fame but as a spur to brave and honest deeds; who despises fame will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us whereby our inner being is progressively changed, freeing us more and more from sinful traits and developing within us over time the virtues of Christlike character.

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

I have recommended in my writings the study of civic virtues, without which there is no redemption. I have written likewise (and repeat my words) that reforms, to be beneficial, must come from above, that those which come from below are irregularly gained and uncertain.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

One of our Constitution’s greatest virtues is that it looks to judges as a source of reasoned, practical, rights-minded decision making.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

Industry, economy, honesty, and kindness form a quartet of virtues that will never be improved upon.

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards.

Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater than the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain sense greater than God; while yet, in the highest sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God. Love being the highest principle is the virtue of all virtues; from whence they flow forth.

Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions.

Wrong people are wrong not because of their faults but because of their presumed virtues.

When the norm is decency, other virtues can thrive: integrity, honesty, compassion, kindness, and trust.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

Washington’s character was rock solid. He came to stand for the new nation and its republican virtues, which was why he became our first President by unanimous choice.

Bodies which contain a greater proportion of water than is necessary to balance the other elements, are speedily corrupted, and lose their virtues and properties.

To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.

David Robinson chose to stay at Navy. He talked about commitment, loyalty and values. I wonder how many of us would choose these virtues rather than the chance of becoming a millionaire, especially if you were a college sophomore when you had to make that choice.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue?

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your imagination.

Social democrats are characteristically modest – a political quality whose virtues are overestimated. We need to apologise a little less for our shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements. That these were always incomplete should not trouble us.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Ninety per cent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We’re nothing without our musicians.

‘Game of Thrones’ is an amazing show, and I have no problem speaking of the virtues of HBO.

I think many of the virtues and values of the army are very similar to the virtues and values of socialism, of the Labour Party. It’s about looking out for each other, it’s about working as a team, it’s about understanding.