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Quotes about virtue

884 quotes from 395 people

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Weak and kindly people are often very treacherous. And if they’ve got a grudge against life it saps the little moral strength that they may possess.
Agatha Christie1890–1976A Murder is Announced (1950)
- Character
Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.
Albert Schweitzer1875–1965The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164
- Advice
- Charity
I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.
Robert Falcon Scott1868–1912“Message to the Public” (March 1912), in Scott’s Last Expedition (1913), vol. 1
- Courage
- Life & Death
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamaborn 1935The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness (1990), “A Talk to Western Buddhists” p. 89
- Charity
The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
Robert E. Lee1807–1870“Definition of a Gentleman”, a memorandum found in his papers after his death, as quoted in Lee the American (1912) by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 233
- Character
- Power
I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.
Eleanor Roosevelt1884–1962My Day (1935–1962) (8 November 1944)
- Character
Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, I have found much human virtue.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)
An army’s bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), V
- Courage
- War & Peace
It is not that addresses at the opening of a battle make the soldiers brave. The old veterans scarcely hear them, and recruits forget them at the first boom of the cannon.
Napoleon1769–1821Napoleon: In His Own Words (1916)
- Courage
- War & Peace
The petit-bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the Other. If he comes face to face with him, he blinds himself, ignores and denies him, or else transforms him into himself.
Roland Barthes1915–1980Mythologies (1957), p. 151
- Character
Character is the entity, the individuality of the person, shining from every window of the soul, either as a beam of purity, or as a clouded ray that betrays the impurity within.
William Jennings Bryan1860–1925Address at Illinois College (1881)
- Character
Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Book I
- Character
- Writing
You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.
Abigail Adams1744–1818Letter to John Adams (27 November 1775)
What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and courage to advocate them.
Jane Addams1860–1935Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922), Chapter 7: Personal Reactions During War
- Courage
- Hope
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. It is only spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every touch.
Washington Irving1783–1859The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820), “The Country Church”
- Character
- Pride