Quotes about virtue
884 quotes from 395 people
When the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something.
Robert Browning1812–1889Men and Women (1855), “Bishop Blougram’s Apology”, line 693.I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
Roger Ebert1942–2013First published in the “Roger Ebert’s Journal” column (19 May 2010)Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays, ch. XLIIIIn contextThe greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881The Hero as ProphetRights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere licence.
Pope Benedict XVI1927–2022Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009)Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man.
Edward R. Murrow1908–1965Speech to his staff (1954)There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), volume i, p. 273In every man’s writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Goethe (1828).It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
Aeschylus525–456 BCFragment 394 (222 Smyth), from an unidentified play. Included in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
Edward R. Murrow1908–1965CBS television broadcast, on See It Now (7 March 1954)What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.
Henry van Dyke1852–1933Ships and Havens, ch. 2 (1898).Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury1920–2012Brown Daily Herald (24 March 1995)Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild;
In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child.
Alexander Pope1688–1744“Epitaph on Gay” (1733), lines 1-2. Reported in The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 818One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
William Hazlitt1778–1830Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld’s Maxims (1823), No. 162