Quotes about Virtue
Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.
- Pierre Corneille
A bad man becomes worse when he apes a saint.
- Publilius Syrus
There are men steady and wise whose body, words and mind are self-controlled. They are the men of supreme self-control.
- Publilius Syrus
It is not what talents or genius a man has, but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character. The man thatstands by himself, the universe stands by him also.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
A man cannot have character unless he lives within a fundamental system of morals that creates character.
- Harry S. Truman
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.
- Henry David Thoreau
To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum sanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the broad noon of his existence.
- Henry David Thoreau
Perverted pride is a great misfortune in men; but pride in its original function, for which God created it, is indispensable to a proper manhood.
- Henry Ward Beecher
Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until you are useless; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the universe.
- Henry Ward Beecher