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Quotes about virtue

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I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.
Kanye Westborn 1977October 16, 2011 tweet
- Comedy
- Responsibility
Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives … and you can either help somebody, you can be compassionate toward people, you can treat some people with dignity — or not.
George Lucasborn 1944Interview with Bill Moyers for The Mythology of Star Wars (1999)
- Character
- Decisions
It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.
Marie Antoinette1755–1793Letter to her mother, Empress Maria Theresa (June 1775), after Louis XVI’s coronation at Reims; as quoted in Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001), p. 135
- Leadership
- Responsibility
Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.
Anthony Bourdain1956–2018Kitchen Confidential (2000)
- Character
Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.
Diane Keaton1946–2025Then Again (2011; 2012), Ch. 6: The Uphill Climb Versus the Downhill Slide
- Character
Modesty is part of belief.
MMuhammad571–632Hadith, in Riyadh as-Salihin by al-Nawawi, vol. 4, no. 681
- Faith
The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
- Courage
- Intelligence
The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise.
Xunzi313–231 BCXunzi, ch. 1, “An Exhortation to Learning”; as translated in P. J. Ivanhoe and B. W. Van Norden (eds.), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 260
- Character
The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
- Character
It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994), Chapter 102, “Al Capp” (p. 311)
- Charity
- Politics
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Walden (1854), ConclusionIn context
- Character
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert1920–1986Dune (1965), the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
- Courage
- Fear
Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952)
- Emotion
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
Raymond Chandler1888–1959“The Simple Art of Murder”, The Atlantic Monthly (December 1944)
- Character
- Courage
It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.
Albert Schweitzer1875–1965Out of My Life and Thought (1931), Epilogue
- Responsibility