Virtue, should there be anyone who still ignores the fact, always finds pitfalls on the extremely difficult path of perfection, but sin and vice are so favoured by fortune…

Nichts Interessantes ist jemals richtig.

There is no road or ready way to virtue.

Anyone can be a hero, even those who cannot!

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

So may the outward shows be least themselves:The world is still deceived with ornament.In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil? In religion,What damned error,...

If being alive is not a virtue, then there is little virtue in virtue.

This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.

Woman study loving him his whole life; Man study loving well, your whole wife

Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite...

Wise men are not pacifists; they are merely less likely to jump up and retaliate against their antagonizers. They know that needless antagonizers are virtually already insecure enough.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

It all seemed a hollow sham now – that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she’d had enough of that; she wanted to live!

I have pushed virtue to outright brutality.

I may have mentioned patience wasn’t one of my virtues. Actually, I didn’t have many virtues but patience definitely wasn’t one of them.

Her mind, shaped so long before my own, was for me the equivalent of what had been offered me by the behaviour of the girls of the little gang along the sea-shore. Mme de Guermantes...

One peculiarity of our present [ethical] climate is that we care much more about our rights than about our ‘good’. For previous thinkers about ethics, such as those who wrote the Upanishads, or Confucius, or...

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners – your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards – who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.

He who on earth has lived in the conjugal state as he should live, will be placed among the Gods who dwell in heaven

All that evil requires is an absence of virtue, where somebody didn’t make a stand.

But virtue, as it never will be moved,Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,Will sate itself in a celestial bedAnd prey on garbage.

Sex swims in marriage, while sex sinks in sin of being single.

In the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence.

…happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves…. The...

As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants...

[I]t’s not enough to be right. I think you have to be generous. It’s not enough to be logical. You have to be virtuous…[Y]our demeanor will carry your message, perhaps, even further than your words...

Aristocracy’s only an admission that certain traits which we call fine – courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing – can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don’t...

It is only in virtue that you can discover, that you can live – not in the cultivation of a virtue, which merely brings about respectability, not understanding and freedom.

I have observed that gentlemen suppose that the general legislature will do every thing mischievous they possibly can, and that they will omit to do every thing good which they are authorized to do. If...

The modern virtues fail because they concern the outer self, the human facade, the part of ourselves the world sees most readily – while the classical virtues form an organizing framework for our inner selves…...

I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.

Desire is a great virtue, but expectation is an even greater vice.

Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.

The virtue in most request is conformity.

Modesty isn’t always a virtue; it can be a hindrance; a careful measure of personal pride builds confidence and ensures success.

Learning to fail is a virtue. Failing to learn is a sin.

As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man’s demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property – and...

I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere...

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you’ve got an audience!

What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?

When virtue has slept it will arise more vigorous.

Why should there be some sort of virtue always attributed to a frank admission of vice?

Many pride themselves, staking claim to the noble virtue that is loyalty. However, many resolve to give their allegiance to nothing. How can one demand loyalty, if one stands by nothing, nor commits to the...

It is easy to be conspicuously ‘compassionate’ if others are being forced to pay the cost.

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics

Areté is a word that means excellence in character and life. It is the accumulation of virtue in one’s life.

Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause.

Much better stay in company!To love you must have someone else,Giving requires a legatee,Good neighbours need whole parishfulsOf folk to do it on – in short,Our virtues are all social; if,Deprived of solitude, you chafe,It’s...