virtue

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
58896ef	One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.	virtue poetry wine	Charles Baudelaire
0784bba	Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.	virtue	F. Scott Fitzgerald
9695839	It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.	virtue competence nobility self-respect	Ayn Rand
0535913	We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.	virtue honor	John Steinbeck
78d38ff	There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.	virtue hate morality indignation envy double-standards vice	Erich Fromm
750c12e	Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.	virtue religion god happiness inspirational mormonism	Joseph Smith
00729b9	And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.	virtue romance spirit purity soul	Charlotte Brontë
86e9e9c	For I am--or I was--one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all--a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named--but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey's bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well--by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.	virtue personality world life pride	James Baldwin
dde696f	Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.	virtue compassion	Brené Brown
27a1f83	The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.	virtue goals	L.M. Montgomery
a76874c	Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one's consciousness can permit the faking of existence.	virtue rand	Ayn Rand
b0f541d	Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.	virtue worth independence	Ayn Rand
0d36fa9	Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.	virtue kindness strength intelligence epithets good-nature serene insolence malice arrogance genius logic	Robert Green Ingersoll
a3b2f25	O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm. That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. -	virtue innocence-lost innocence seduction	William Blake
ac38d03	Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.	virtue loyalty	Milan Kundera
ac0235e	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, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.	virtue religion ornament falsehood law pretense vice	William Shakespeare
adaf89b	Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause.	virtue vanity	Richard Flanagan
bcba006	"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."	virtue	Ayn Rand
8927284	The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.	virtue granny-weatherwax wickedness	Terry Pratchett
54e3449	I know, brother, that you are a straightforward man, and that you pride yourself on it. But put one question to yourself: in fact should one tell the truth? What obliges us to do it? And why do we consider telling the truth a virtue? Imagine that you meet a madman, who claims that he is a fish and that we are all fish. Are you going to argue with him? Are you going to undress in front of him and show him that you don't have fins? Are you going to say to his face what you think? Well, tell me!' His brother was silent and Edward went on: 'If you told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, only what you really thought, you would enter into a serious conversation with a madman and you yourself would become mad. And it is the same way with the world that surrounds us. If I obstinately told a man the truth to his face, it would mean I was taking him seriously. And to take something so unimportant seriously means to become less than serious oneself. I, you see, lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become one of them myself.	virtue lying lies truth	Milan Kundera
ef19494	The charm of your society, my Sparrow, lies in not knowing what you will say next - though one rapidly learns to expect the worst!	virtue spontaneity	Georgette Heyer
3c9446a	Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.	virtue ice forgiveness sin	William Shakespeare
180c0d4	"She's wonderful. Tell her I've never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you." Waddington, smiling, translated the question. "She says I'm good." "As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue," Kitty mocked."	virtue	W. Somerset Maugham
0a24e45	War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.	virtue war warrior-ethos warrior	Steven Pressfield
320d27e	I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them--one or two of them particularly-- almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel--to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man-- no man short of a sensual savage--will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes.	virtue sex men women fear molest socializing seduction	Thomas Hardy
dcaf85e	Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake.	virtue	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
22bd67c	You do me proud, Captain. But, dear, I want to say one thing and then I'm done; for you don't need much advice of mine after my good man has spoken. I read somewhere that every inch of rope in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end.	virtue	Louisa May Alcott
ab776e6	A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it.	virtue	Epictetus
fd59d2a	"If this is vise I want no virtue. ... I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.	virtue vice	Ayn Rand
b310cb4	Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.	virtue vice	Franz Kafka
3110291	...For like a rugged tree you are hard and sound at the core.	virtue steadfastness compliments reliability	H. Rider Haggard
b073a38	Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.	virtue philosophy wisdom public-service tyranny power	Iain Pears
72a1a42	To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.	virtue sacrifice vices	Ayn Rand
3dc8089	In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor.	virtue direct simplistic slow intentions fat	Tim O'Brien
55b16ae	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...	virtue vice	José Saramago
4410879	To live with integrity, it is important to know what's right and what's wrong, to be educated morally. However, merely KNOWING is not enough. Virtuous character matters more than moral knowledge. The reason is simple: like the self-confessing apostle Paul in Romans 7, most of those who do wrong know what's right but find themselves irresistibly attracted to its opposite. Faith idles when character shrivels	virtue integrity morality faith faith-without-works-is-dead moral-knowledge works st-paul romans right-and-wrong	Miroslav Volf
5bcb784	"[Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth." "No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it." "And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?" Here she laughs. "You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing."	mankind understanding virtue enlightenment fear philosophy truth soul	Iain Pears
667b300	Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
958e313	Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.	virtue man mind good morality choice reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
d4101d3	Each of you will have a chance to play it, and whosoever plays most sweetly, you will have it. For art is more than virtue or vice.	virtue vice	Holly Black
2a3f4ca	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 loathsome as such claim might be, there's something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No- if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes- if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value, only man's fight against suffering is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim - is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made.	virtue suffering trade self-esteem values	Ayn Rand
ba32085	The ruthlessness of the godly invalidated their claims of virtue.	virtue	Salman Rushdie
3a71a5f	Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.	virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
3297c43	Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality.	virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
bd730a0	These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness	virtue history good morality goodness faith religion religious belief-systems dune-arrakis dune-house-atreides evil-men falsehoods justice-of-god dune-messiah dune moral-law religion-philosophy falsehood historical-perspective history-of-thought history-of-mankind belief-system religion-spirituality religious-faith historical beliefs religions moral virtues morals evil	Frank Herbert
0861be3	Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.	virtue entomology	Gordon S. Wood
b412a98	"I have brought peace to this land, and security," he began. "And what of your soul, when you use the cleverness of argument to cloak such acts? Do you think that the peace of a thousand cancels out the unjust death of one single person? It may be desirable, it may win you praise from those who have happily survived you and prospered from your deeds, but you have committed ignoble acts, and have been too proud to own them. I have waited patiently here, hoping that you would come to me, for if you understood, then some of your acts would be mitigated. But instead you send me this manuscript, proud, magisterial, and demonstrating only that you have understood nothing at all." "I returned to public life on your advice, madam," he said stiffly. "Yes; I advised it. I said if learning must die it should do so with a friend by its bedside. Not an assassin." --	virtue injustice killing good learning philosophy public-office doctrine prosperity peace pride vice soul values evil	Iain Pears
a29080c	Power doesn't equal worth. Wisdom is a far greater virtue.	virtue worth	Michael J. Sullivan
79f1f84	Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?	virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young	John Fowles
a514c2b	Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.	virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values	Ayn Rand
4c555ad	Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
bbd169c	But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.	virtue pages sin	Umberto Eco
92b71a8	I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill? [...] In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.	virtue humanity love vice	John Steinbeck
9c425e3	Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.	virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
d4aa10e	Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.	virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
f93c7aa	Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions.	virtue politics	Iain Pears
b269d2b	Then it was that Jo, living in the darkened room, with that suffering little sister always before her eyes and that pathetic voice sounding in her ears, learned to see the beauty and the sweetness of Beth's nature, to feel how deep and tender a place she filled in all hearts, and to acknowledge the worth of Beth's unselfish ambition to live for others, and make home happy by that exercise of those simple virtues which all may possess, and which all should love and value more than talent, wealth, or beauty.	virtue wealth talent values	Louisa May Alcott
d1990f0	Virtue will cut your head off, vice will only cut your hair.	virtue women judith mistress wife vice	Honoré de Balzac
1c5bc7b	A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues.	virtue vice	G.K. Chesterton
1d3f156	What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?	virtue riddle	George Eliot
e02906b	But I was born in the image of God, a man, a creator, with power of life and death, a father, blessed with the gift of the seed of Adam, a sower of seed, to bring forth generations of new life. This I was, and envying a kettle.	virtue power-of-procreation	Richard Llewellyn
d3d4258	If a man took a lover it would be accounted commonplace. Why shouldn't you? Your virtue lies in your mind, not in what lies between your legs.	virtue	Lauren Willig
36e0ef4	"Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something. "The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action." Olivier frowned. "So?" "Dear boy, I must tell you a secret." "What?" "I do believe it is wrong."	understanding virtue wrong philosophy comprehension right	Iain Pears
51d782b	Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue...	virtue	James Hilton
3656bf0	Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.	virtue vice	Sena Jeter Naslund
410c0d7	Perception of personal danger very often set people on the path of virtue.	virtue morality	Donna Leon
875a1ed	lkdhb ynqlb fDyl@ fy HDr@ lns	virtue women	Naguib Mahfouz
23f1cc0	Arcadio had seen her many times working in her parents' small food store but he had never taken a good look at her because she had that rare virtue of never existing completely except at the opportune moment.	virtue	Gabriel García Márquez
4da648f	I am fit to capture a unicorn, and I should not be so questioned.	virtue virginity	Philippa Gregory
4c790e5	As I was to learn, patience and latitude and even humility are, paradoxically, the handmaidens of wealth, because virtue is costly only for those who own nothing else.	virtue wealth	James Lee Burke
7ca3953	That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this virtue to which I have returned!	virtue suffering happiness	Victor Hugo
2fa7965	In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.	virtue republicanism law government	Gordon S. Wood
6f5a76c	The beauty and music...It is a call...And some are not strong.	virtue power	Richard Llewellyn
621dff4	It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it.	virtue morality	Jim Butcher
7d66cec	Repression is Justine's whole being - repression of sex, of anger and of her own violence; the repressions demanded of Christian virtue, in fact.	virtue repression	Angela Carter
f19318c	Sade's manicheistic dualism sees the world as irredeemably evil; vice must always prosper, virtue always despair. There is no hope for us as we are now.[...]Sade's vision is utterly without transcendence.	virtue transcendence vice	Angela Carter
ad75303	My life of conversation leads me to reimagine the very meaning of hope. I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory.	virtue spirit faith religion spiritual hope truth wholeheartedness on-being enoughness habit	Krista Tippett
4e497eb	But there is no mysterious virtue in Justine's suffering. The martyrdom of this Christ-figure is absolutely useless; she is a gratuitous victim. And if there is no virtue in her suffering, then there is none, it turns out, in her virtue itself; it does nobody any good, least of all herself.	virtue	Angela Carter

58896ef

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

virtue poetry wine

Charles Baudelaire

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Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

virtue

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.

virtue competence nobility self-respect

Ayn Rand

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We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.

virtue honor

John Steinbeck

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There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

virtue hate morality indignation envy double-standards vice

Erich Fromm

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Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.

virtue religion god happiness inspirational mormonism

Joseph Smith

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And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.

virtue romance spirit purity soul

Charlotte Brontë

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For I am--or I was--one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all--a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named--but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey's bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well--by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.

virtue personality world life pride

James Baldwin

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Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.

virtue compassion

Brené Brown

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The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

virtue goals

L.M. Montgomery

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Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one's consciousness can permit the faking of existence.

virtue rand

Ayn Rand

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Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

virtue worth independence

Ayn Rand

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Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.

virtue kindness strength intelligence epithets good-nature serene insolence malice arrogance genius logic

Robert Green Ingersoll

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O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm. That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. -

virtue innocence-lost innocence seduction

William Blake

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Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.

virtue loyalty

Milan Kundera

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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, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

virtue religion ornament falsehood law pretense vice

William Shakespeare

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Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause.

virtue vanity

Richard Flanagan

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"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."

virtue

Ayn Rand

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The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.

virtue granny-weatherwax wickedness

Terry Pratchett

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I know, brother, that you are a straightforward man, and that you pride yourself on it. But put one question to yourself: in fact should one tell the truth? What obliges us to do it? And why do we consider telling the truth a virtue? Imagine that you meet a madman, who claims that he is a fish and that we are all fish. Are you going to argue with him? Are you going to undress in front of him and show him that you don't have fins? Are you going to say to his face what you think? Well, tell me!' His brother was silent and Edward went on: 'If you told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, only what you really thought, you would enter into a serious conversation with a madman and you yourself would become mad. And it is the same way with the world that surrounds us. If I obstinately told a man the truth to his face, it would mean I was taking him seriously. And to take something so unimportant seriously means to become less than serious oneself. I, you see, lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become one of them myself.

virtue lying lies truth

Milan Kundera

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The charm of your society, my Sparrow, lies in not knowing what you will say next - though one rapidly learns to expect the worst!

virtue spontaneity

Georgette Heyer

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Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.

virtue ice forgiveness sin

William Shakespeare

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"She's wonderful. Tell her I've never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you." Waddington, smiling, translated the question. "She says I'm good." "As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue," Kitty mocked."

virtue

W. Somerset Maugham

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War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.

virtue war warrior-ethos warrior

Steven Pressfield

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I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them--one or two of them particularly-- almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are taught to feel--to be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average man-- no man short of a sensual savage--will molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes.

virtue sex men women fear molest socializing seduction

Thomas Hardy

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Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake.

virtue

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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You do me proud, Captain. But, dear, I want to say one thing and then I'm done; for you don't need much advice of mine after my good man has spoken. I read somewhere that every inch of rope in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end.

virtue

Louisa May Alcott

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A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it.

virtue

Epictetus

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"If this is vise I want no virtue. ... I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

virtue vice

Ayn Rand

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Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

virtue vice

Franz Kafka

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...For like a rugged tree you are hard and sound at the core.

virtue steadfastness compliments reliability

H. Rider Haggard

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Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.

virtue philosophy wisdom public-service tyranny power

Iain Pears

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To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.

virtue sacrifice vices

Ayn Rand

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In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor.

virtue direct simplistic slow intentions fat

Tim O'Brien

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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...

virtue vice

José Saramago

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To live with integrity, it is important to know what's right and what's wrong, to be educated morally. However, merely KNOWING is not enough. Virtuous character matters more than moral knowledge. The reason is simple: like the self-confessing apostle Paul in Romans 7, most of those who do wrong know what's right but find themselves irresistibly attracted to its opposite. Faith idles when character shrivels

virtue integrity morality faith faith-without-works-is-dead moral-knowledge works st-paul romans right-and-wrong

Miroslav Volf

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"[Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth." "No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it." "And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?" Here she laughs. "You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing."

mankind understanding virtue enlightenment fear philosophy truth soul

Iain Pears

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Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment - on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

virtue man mind good morality choice reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Each of you will have a chance to play it, and whosoever plays most sweetly, you will have it. For art is more than virtue or vice.

virtue vice

Holly Black

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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 loathsome as such claim might be, there's something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No- if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes- if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value, only man's fight against suffering is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim - is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made.

virtue suffering trade self-esteem values

Ayn Rand

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The ruthlessness of the godly invalidated their claims of virtue.

virtue

Salman Rushdie

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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality.

virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness

virtue history good morality goodness faith religion religious belief-systems dune-arrakis dune-house-atreides evil-men falsehoods justice-of-god dune-messiah dune moral-law religion-philosophy falsehood historical-perspective history-of-thought history-of-mankind belief-system religion-spirituality religious-faith historical beliefs religions moral virtues morals evil

Frank Herbert

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Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.

virtue entomology

Gordon S. Wood

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"I have brought peace to this land, and security," he began. "And what of your soul, when you use the cleverness of argument to cloak such acts? Do you think that the peace of a thousand cancels out the unjust death of one single person? It may be desirable, it may win you praise from those who have happily survived you and prospered from your deeds, but you have committed ignoble acts, and have been too proud to own them. I have waited patiently here, hoping that you would come to me, for if you understood, then some of your acts would be mitigated. But instead you send me this manuscript, proud, magisterial, and demonstrating only that you have understood nothing at all." "I returned to public life on your advice, madam," he said stiffly. "Yes; I advised it. I said if learning must die it should do so with a friend by its bedside. Not an assassin." --

virtue injustice killing good learning philosophy public-office doctrine prosperity peace pride vice soul values evil

Iain Pears

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Power doesn't equal worth. Wisdom is a far greater virtue.

virtue worth

Michael J. Sullivan

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Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?

virtue good goodness life betrayed bursting younger older trivial ideals virtuous years frank old frankness betray important understand ideal experience charm knowledge betrayal young

John Fowles

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Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

virtue man mind existence morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think consciousness thinking morals values

Ayn Rand

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Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders' attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.

virtue pages sin

Umberto Eco

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I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill? [...] In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

virtue humanity love vice

John Steinbeck

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Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies...It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

virtue man mind good morality reason life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise--that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality--that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind--that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one's consciousness.

virtue pain man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil

Ayn Rand

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Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions.

virtue politics

Iain Pears

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Then it was that Jo, living in the darkened room, with that suffering little sister always before her eyes and that pathetic voice sounding in her ears, learned to see the beauty and the sweetness of Beth's nature, to feel how deep and tender a place she filled in all hearts, and to acknowledge the worth of Beth's unselfish ambition to live for others, and make home happy by that exercise of those simple virtues which all may possess, and which all should love and value more than talent, wealth, or beauty.

virtue wealth talent values

Louisa May Alcott

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Virtue will cut your head off, vice will only cut your hair.

virtue women judith mistress wife vice

Honoré de Balzac

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A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues.

virtue vice

G.K. Chesterton

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

virtue riddle

George Eliot

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But I was born in the image of God, a man, a creator, with power of life and death, a father, blessed with the gift of the seed of Adam, a sower of seed, to bring forth generations of new life. This I was, and envying a kettle.

virtue power-of-procreation

Richard Llewellyn

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If a man took a lover it would be accounted commonplace. Why shouldn't you? Your virtue lies in your mind, not in what lies between your legs.

virtue

Lauren Willig

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"Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something. "The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action." Olivier frowned. "So?" "Dear boy, I must tell you a secret." "What?" "I do believe it is wrong."

understanding virtue wrong philosophy comprehension right

Iain Pears

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Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue...

virtue

James Hilton

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

virtue vice

Sena Jeter Naslund

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Perception of personal danger very often set people on the path of virtue.

virtue morality

Donna Leon

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lkdhb ynqlb fDyl@ fy HDr@ lns

virtue women

Naguib Mahfouz

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Arcadio had seen her many times working in her parents' small food store but he had never taken a good look at her because she had that rare virtue of never existing completely except at the opportune moment.

virtue

Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

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I am fit to capture a unicorn, and I should not be so questioned.

virtue virginity

Philippa Gregory

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As I was to learn, patience and latitude and even humility are, paradoxically, the handmaidens of wealth, because virtue is costly only for those who own nothing else.

virtue wealth

James Lee Burke

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That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this virtue to which I have returned!

virtue suffering happiness

Victor Hugo

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In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.

virtue republicanism law government

Gordon S. Wood

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The beauty and music...It is a call...And some are not strong.

virtue power

Richard Llewellyn

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It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it.

virtue morality

Jim Butcher

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Repression is Justine's whole being - repression of sex, of anger and of her own violence; the repressions demanded of Christian virtue, in fact.

virtue repression

Angela Carter

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Sade's manicheistic dualism sees the world as irredeemably evil; vice must always prosper, virtue always despair. There is no hope for us as we are now.[...]Sade's vision is utterly without transcendence.

virtue transcendence vice

Angela Carter

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My life of conversation leads me to reimagine the very meaning of hope. I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory.

virtue spirit faith religion spiritual hope truth wholeheartedness on-being enoughness habit

Krista Tippett

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But there is no mysterious virtue in Justine's suffering. The martyrdom of this Christ-figure is absolutely useless; she is a gratuitous victim. And if there is no virtue in her suffering, then there is none, it turns out, in her virtue itself; it does nobody any good, least of all herself.

virtue

Angela Carter