Immoral Virtue Quotes

He guided her hands lower, over her own soft belly, her hips, the tops of her thighs. The oils they spread there left a sheen upon her flesh. A sheen that glistened as firelight and shadows caroused about the space.

His grasped her wrists and he urged her hands to her back once again.

"Clasp them," he said and she did. ~ Arla Dahl

Society inures us to acts of immorality and decadence. We passively accept violence and exploitation as part of the cultural normative. When the Wall Street Kings crashed their money mobile, Congress was quick to pass bailout bills. How many of these same Congressmen and Wall Street millionaires do you think ever reached into their pocket to buy a homeless person a sandwich? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Warfare is a means and not an end. Warfare is a tool of revolutionaries. The important thing is the revolution. The important thing is the revolutionary cause, revolutionary ideas, revolutionary objectives, revolutionary sentiments, revolutionary virtues! ~ Fidel Castro

The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves. ~ Erich Fromm

He made an honest woman of me. It's a curious expression, don't you agree? An 'honest woman' is a very different creature from an 'honest man' and has nothing to do with the truth or lack thereof. Just as a woman's honor is a very different thing from a man's. It's as if when it comes to women, all possible virtues - honesty, honor, even virtue itself - are reduced simply to whom we allow between our legs. ~ C.S. Harris

By virtue of believing in a Supreme Being one embraces certain mysteries. ~ Robert Vaughn

Everything is indefinite, misty, and transient; only virtue is clear, and it cannot be destroyed by any force. - MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO ~ Leo Tolstoy

It is better to be a moral ignoramus than an immoral intellectual. ~ Stephan Attia

It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence. ~ Samuel Johnson

working against this natural law to hold on to the things that we cherish and run away from the things that we dislike. Both are impermanent and our conscious mind might even understand this virtue of transience (if conditioned to do so), but the unconscious mind continues to lead us with its inherently mischievous and restless ways, which are further fuelled by our self-created and magnified sense of ego.
In general, ~ Manish Chopra

To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will. But inasmuch as man, because of his nature as the thinking animal and by virtue of forming ideas, is related to beings in their Being, is thereby related to Being, and is thus determined by Being - therefore man's being, in keeping with this relatedness of Being (which now means, of the will) to human nature, must emphatically appear as a willing. ~ Martin Heidegger

It may be a movement towards becoming like little children to admit that we are generally nothing else. ~ Charles Williams

'Knowledge, without common sense,' says Lee, is 'folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death.' But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with charity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace. ~ Austin Farrer

General McChrystal had to go. Whatever his virtues as a strategist and commander, the 'Rolling Stone' interview fatally compromised his ability to represent the United States in dealing with allies and to act within the circle of people who must make decisions in Afghanistan. ~ Jim Talent

On Virtue

O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive

To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare

Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.

I cease to wonder, and no more attempt

Thine height t'explore, or fathom thy profound.

But, O my soul, sink not into despair,

Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand

Would now embrace thee, hovers o'er thine head.

Fain would the heaven-born soul with her converse,

Then seek, then court her for her promised bliss.


Auspicious queen, thine heavenly pinions spread,

And lead celestial Chastity along;

Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,

Arrayed in glory from the orbs above.

Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years!

O leave me not to the false joys of time!

But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.

Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,

To give an higher appellation still,

Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,

O Thou, enthroned with Cherubs in the realms of day! ~ Phillis Wheatley

Beauty is an exquisite flower, and its perfume is virtue. ~ Giovanni Ruffini

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge. ~ Dante Alighieri

Aspire to the principal, behave with virtue, abide by benevolence, and immerse yourself in the arts. ~ Confucius

Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care. ~ Jack Kornfield

There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people, without a plan, could speak a spontaneous, unexpected truth, because revelation rules. Telling words recur in this smart, generous conversation between Stephen Andrews and Gregg Bordowitz: patience, responsibility, feminism, ethics, cosmology, AIDS, gift, freedom, mortality. ~ Lynne Tillman

Science is expanding, and with it our vision of the universe. although this new and constantly changing view may not always give us comfort, it does have the virtue of truth according to our most effective resources for acquiring knowledge. No philosophy, moral outlook, or religion can be inconsistent with the findings of science and hope to endure among educated people. ~ Heinz Pagels

To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted. ~ Algernon Sidney

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. ~ Plato

Even in the pages of the New York Times and The New Yorker, it seems the epithet 'virtuous,' when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: How did it come to pass that virtue - a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue - become a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment - buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore - should now set you up for the Ed Begley Jr. treatment. ~ Michael Pollan

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything. ~ Mason Cooley

Qualities like love and compassion are not just abstract virtues that are the property of saints and adepts. Anyone can develop these qualities in themselves by doing spiritual practices. As the Buddha said, Come and see. ~ Joanna Macy

Q.Do you have any positive message, in your opinion?
A.Indeed I do think that I do.
Q.Such as what?
A.The crying, almost screaming, need of a great worldwide human effort to know ourselves and each other a great deal better, well enough to concede that no man has a monopoly on right or virtue any more than any man has a corner on duplicity and evil and so forth. If people, and races and nations, would start with that self-manifest truth, then I think that the world could sidestep the sort of corruption which I have involuntarily chosen as the basic, allegorical theme of my plays as a whole. ~ Tennessee Williams

Masonry superadds to our other obligations the strongest ties of connection between it and the cultivation of virtue, and furnishes the most powerful incentives to goodness. ~ Joseph Fort Newton

All great virtues become great men. ~ Pierre Corneille

For there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens ... ~ Jeremy Taylor

I do believe that nice religious people make the world safe for extremists by teaching us that faith is a virtue, that there's something good about holding beliefs without any substantiating evidence, that you believe because you believe. Once you buy into that, then the door is opened to extremists who defend their extremism by saying, 'Oh well, it's my faith, you can't touch it, you can't criticise my faith, I don't even need to defend it because faith is faith.' ~ Richard Dawkins

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing. ~ Aristotle.

I would have kissed you harder. I would have fought for you more. I don't know. I would have stolen you away, taken your virtue, made myself so permanently etched on your person that every time you took a breath it was my scent that was permeating the air. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

Everybody knows basically what is right and what is wrong. Everybody knows better than to hate others. In fact, most people teach against it, and yet we still see it on the daily. But why do you think that is? It is because the problem was never really humans not loving humans enough; the problem was humans not loving righteousness enough. We must empty our own love for the world so that it can be replaced by the love of Christ; only then will we begin to love people as Christ loves people, as He always intended. ~ Criss Jami

I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade - or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere. ~ Belva Lockwood