Quotations about Virtues

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. ~Horace Mann, "Thoughts for a Young Man," 1859


We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice. ~Henry David Thoreau


Blushing is the color of virtue. ~Diogenes


Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm. ~Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew, 1762


Virtue is insufficient temptation. ~George Bernard Shaw


Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. ~Henry David Thoreau


He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place. ~Charles Caleb Colton


Modesty and unselfishness - these are virtues which men praise - and pass by. ~André Maurois, Ariel, 1924


Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself. ~Friedrich Nietzsche


Virtue is its own revenge. ~E.Y. Harburn


All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance. ~Theodore M. Hesburgh


The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues. You can't separate them. They're wedded. ~Henry Miller


Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company. ~François de la Rochefoucauld


A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined. ~Anne Petry


What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. ~Voltaire


Sin is commitable in thought, word or deed; so is virtue. ~Martin H. Fischer


To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg


Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us. ~Robert S. Lynd


The excess of virtue is a vice. ~Greek Proverb


Unless I accept my faults I will most certainly doubt my virtues. ~Hugh Prather


They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny a sun because it is not always day. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


Water which is too pure has no fish. ~Ts'ai Ken T'an


On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. ~George Orwell


It is hardly respectable to be good nowadays. ~Edith Sitwell


Some folks wear their halos much too tight. ~Author Unknown


What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. ~Christopher Fry


We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them. ~La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665