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Quotes about virtue

884 quotes from 395 people

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He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken.
Jack London1876–1916The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter IIn context
- Character
- Courage
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
Never fear quarrels, but seek adventures.
Alexandre Dumas1802–1870The Three Musketeers (1844), Chapter IIn context
- Advice
- Courage
Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Notes from Underground (1864), Part II: À Propos of the Wet Snow, Chapter IXIn context
- Character
Fortune befriends the bold.
Virgil70–19 BCThe Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book XIn context
- Courage
- Luck
If ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds.
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book IIn context
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745A Modest Proposal (1729)In context
- Charity
- Children
Those whose own conduct’s most ridiculous,
Are always quickest to speak ill of others;
Molière1622–1673Tartuffe (1664–1669), Act I, Scene I, spoken by DorineIn context
- Character
- Talking
There are false heroes⁠—and false devotees;
And as true heroes never are the ones
Who make much noise about their deeds of honour,
Just so true devotees, whom we should follow,
Are not the ones who make so much vain show.
Molière1622–1673Tartuffe (1664–1669), Act I, Scene VI, spoken by CleanteIn context
- Religion
A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the clothes, the mind, the thoughts.
Anton Chekhov1860–1904Uncle Vanya (1897), Act II, spoken by AstroffIn context
- Beauty
- Character
Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now
That every man more loveth his own head
Than other men’s?
Euripides481–407 BCMedea (431 BC), Part 1, spoken by AttendantIn context
- Character
It gives me a sense of freedom to know that a deed of deliberate courage is still possible in this world,⁠—a deed of spontaneous beauty.
Henrik Ibsen1828–1906Hedda Gabler (1890), Act Fourth, spoken by HeddaIn context
A man is known by the company he keeps.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Gamecocks and the Partridge – The Dove and the CrowIn context
- Character
- Friendship
Fine feathers don’t make fine birds.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Bald Knight – The Woman and Her HenIn context
- Beauty
- Character
You’ve only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: “Oh Lord, you’ve given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.”
Anton Chekhov1860–1904The Cherry Orchard (1904), Act Two, spoken by LopakhinIn context
- Character
- Nature