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Quotes about virtue

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Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who ‘forgives’ you — out of love — takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Easter 1960
- Forgiveness
It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the “dark shade of courage” alone that the spell can be broken.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Servant of Peace: A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations (1962), p. 107
- Courage
- Risk
The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Vägmärken · Markings (1963), 1955
- Character
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Vägmärken · Markings (1963), 1950
- Life & Death
- Responsibility
When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it.
Dashiell Hammett1894–1961The Maltese Falcon (1930), Chapter 20In context
I distrust a man that says when. If he’s got to be careful not to drink too much it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.
Dashiell Hammett1894–1961The Maltese Falcon (1930), Chapter 11In context
- Character
None of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if today we choose not to do the right and necessary thing, that burden we own.
Nikole Hannah-Jonesborn 1976The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (2021)
- Responsibility
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 context
- Courage
Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Chapter IIn context
- Character
- Morality
The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), Phase the Sixth: The Convert, Chapter XLIXIn context
- Character
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
SHSydney J. Harris1917–1986On the Contrary (1964), Ch. 7
- Character
People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault.
SHSydney J. Harris1917–1986On the Contrary (1964), Ch. 7
- Character
Superior people are only those who let it be discovered by others; the need to make it evident forfeits the very virtue they aspire to.
SHSydney J. Harris1917–1986Pieces of Eight (1982)
- Character
- Pride
The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.
Václav Havel1936–2011International Herald Tribune (21 February 1990)
- Responsibility
We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it.
Václav Havel1936–2011New Year’s Address to the Nation (1990)
- Government
- Responsibility