Moral Virtue Quotes

Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite. ~ Aristotle.

Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. Advanced art today is no longer a cause -it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out. ~ Harold Rosenberg

Young man, can you restore my eyesight?" "Sir? Why, no, sir!" "You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue - social responsibility - into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

In the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against the assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities which we group together under the name of character. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves. ~ Samuel Smiles

The traditional respect which nations pay to military valor cannot be denied. As every country has a right to self-defense, every country has a right to give honor to its military leaders. But the honoring of military leaders brings deadly danger to mankind unless both the moral authority granted to them and the technical means at their disposal are strictly limited. Military power should never be confused with moral virtue, and military leaders should never be entrusted with weapons of unlimited destruction. ~ Freeman Dyson

If you have a comprehensive explanation for everything then it decreases uncertainty and anxiety and reduces your cognitive load. And if you can use that simplifying algorithm to put yourself on the side of moral virtue then you're constantly a good person with a minimum of effort. ~ Jordan B. Peterson

And of course she enjoyed life immensely. It was her nature to enjoy. Anyhow there was no bitterness in her; none of that sense of moral virtue which is so repulsive in good women. She enjoyed practically everything. If you walked with her in Hyde Park now it was a bed of tulips, now a child in a perambulator, now some absurd little drama she made up on the spur of the moment. ~ Virginia Woolf

Let Christ turn your natural optimism into Christian hope, your energy into moral virtue, your good will into genuine self-sacrificin g love! This is the path you are called to take. This is the path to overcoming all that threatens hope, virtue and love in your lives and in your culture. In this way your youth will be a gift to Jesus and to the world. ~ Pope Francis

Change a virtue in its circumstances find it becomes a vice; change a vice in its circumstances, and it becomes a virtue. Regard the same quality from two sides; on one it is a fault, on the other a merit. The essential of a man is found concealed far below these moral badges. ~ Hippolyte Taine

All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd even toward the best objective. ~ William Ellery Channing

A person is said to have good character when their habits, dispositions and conduct reflect a deep commitment to ethical virtues and moral principles. ~ Michael Josephson

Intelligence, like fire, is a power that is neither good nor bad in itself but rather takes its virtue, its moral coloring, from its application. ~ Roger Kimball

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue. ~ Susan Sontag

[Women's] duty is nothing else than the fulfilment [sic] of the whole moral law, the attainment of every human virtue. ~ Frances Power Cobbe

Prudence as well as Moral Virtue determines the complete performance of a man's proper function: Virtue ensures the rightness of the end we aim at, Prudence ensures the rightness of the means we adopt to gain that end. ~ Aristotle.

If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence. ~ Aristotle.

She claims they give her moral virtue too, but then she has buckets more of that than she needs. ~ Gregory Maguire

He who on earth has lived in the conjugal state as he should live, will be placed among the Gods who dwell in heaven ~ Thiruvalluvar

We can't just surrender to our every desire. Man must have his principles and live by them regardless. Our nature must be controlled or it can ruin our lives. ~ Patti Callahan

I've spent all of my life in an attempt to find truth and moral good and then to live it. I can't discard my moral habits for feelings, which are just that.
(The moral virtues)
They are my footholds for moral goodness. Morality is about choice. ~ Patti Callahan

Aristotle insists that habituation, not teaching, is the route to moral virtue (II. 1). We must practise doing good actions, not just read about virtue. ~ Aristotle.

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage. ~ William Slim

Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue; and, as is the case with other stopgaps, it is often more difficult to get either out or in through them than through any other part of the fence. ~ Augustus William Hare

[Prudence] is the virtue of that part of the intellect [the calculative] to which it belongs; and ... our choice of actions will not be right without Prudence any more than without Moral Virtue, since, while Moral Virtue enables us to achieve the end, Prudence makes us adopt the right means to the end. ~ Aristotle.

Honesty is a moral virtue, a matter of the will. Honesty means willing the truth with the whole of your heart. This demands sacrifice. We have little hope of attaining honesty unless we realize how demanding it is. It demands sacrifice of self-will, self-image, the desire to win, and the comfort of being right.
The "honesty" often praised today is usually only emotional honesty with others, not intellectual honesty with one's self; only "letting it all hang out," not asking what is the real truth. Sometimes "honesty" is only a code word for shamelessness. Rarely does it mean the absolute, fanatical, selfless love of truth. ~ Peter Kreeft

Music like religion, unconditionally brings in its train all the moral virtues to the heart it enters, even though that heart is not in the least worthy. ~ Jean-Baptiste Joseph Emile Montegut

The greatest commandments are not obligations at all, but affirmations of grace. They are promises that with our willing assent, grace will make possible the triumph of full, unfettered love within us.

Our assent, our yes, finally comes from nothing other than our own yearning, from passion itself. It may surface temporarily as desire for self-improvement, functional efficiency, moral virtue, or social justice, but ultimately it will take us beyond and beneath all such ends. Love will bring us to our ever-present beginning, where our only reason for saying yes is simply that we want to.

Here it is only our plain desire that makes true assent possible: the desire to respond to a larger love already given, the desire to love and to be loved and to be fully, consciously present in love as an end in itself. It is a matter of simple caring, our hearts aching for the fullness of love for no other reason than its own essential goodness. In this simple, exquisite longing, awakening in each precious moment, we know who we really are. It is a likeness of God. ~ Gerald G. May

Moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency ... ~ Aristotle.

It is no accident that narcissists and altruists often have a magnetic attraction to one another. Can you see how perfect the fit is? The altruistic feels the need to selflessly serve others and this is just what the narcissist wants. Narcissists want to be worshipped and gratified in every way possible, and this is just what altruists offer, thinking it demonstrates their moral virtue. ~ Ellen Kenner

[the virtues] cannot exist without Prudence. A proof of this is that everyone, even at the present day, in defining Virtue, after saying what disposition it is [i.e. moral virtue] and specifying the things with which it is concerned, adds that it is a disposition determined by the right principle; and the right principle is the principle determined by Prudence. ~ Aristotle.

Man's work as Man is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the former the right means to its attainment; ~ Aristotle.

It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish. ~ Edward Gibbon

To meet the serious issues facing us in our respective communities today, we must be examples of virtue and righteousness ourselves and choose today to take our stand on the moral issues which threaten us. ~ Nathan Eldon Tanner

The virtues therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive the,. and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit. ~ Aristotle.

The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

God doesn't judge by internal disease but by moral choices. We must protect our hearts. ~ Patti Callahan

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Something new seems to be at work in the contemporary world - a process that is eating away the very heart of social life, not merely by putting salesmanship in place of moral virtue, but by putting everything - virtue included - on sale. ~ Roger Scruton

Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu , virtue free of moral acid). ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue. ~ William Blake

We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue. ~ Richard Flanagan

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

I consider the domestic virtue of the Americans as the principle source of all their other qualities. It acts as a promoter of industry, as a stimulus to enterprise and as the most powerful restraint of public vice ... No government could be established on the same principle as that of the United States with a different code of morals. ~ Francis Grund

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men-the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order. ~ Francis Bacon

That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this public education, and how young persons should be educated, are questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is disagreement about the subjects. For mankind are by no means agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the best life. Neither is it clear whether education is more concerned with intellectual or with moral virtue. ~ Aristotle.

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom. ~ Aristotle.

This necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessing of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue. ~ Thomas Paine

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all. Metaphysics cannot live without definition; but prudence is cautious how she defines. Our courts cannot be more fearful in suffering fictitious cases to be brought before them for eliciting their determination on a point of law, than prudent moralists are in putting extreme and hazardous cases of conscience upon emergencies not existing. ~ Edmund Burke

Jehovah was not a moral god. He had all the vices and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Virtue is as little to be acquired by learning as genius; nay, the idea is barren, and is only to be employed as an instrument, in the same way as genius in respect to art. It would be as foolish to expect that our moral and ethical systems would turn out virtuous, noble, and holy beings, as that our aesthetic systems would produce poets, painters, and musicians. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

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 asks how the evil is to be remedied. I tell him that there seems to be little chance for avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy; that the only ground of hope must be the morals of the people, but that these are, I fear, too corrupt. ~ Gouverneur Morris

The door opens with a rusted jingle, and an animatronic Santa insults my moral virtue three times. Ho, ho, ho. ~ Kiersten White

One of the most annoying habits of liberals is their tendency to confuse their political agenda with moral virtue. ~ Robert Stacy McCain

The only moral virtue of war is that it compels the capitalist system to look itself in the face and admit it is a fraud. It compels the present society to admit that it has no morals it will not sacrifice for gain. ~ Helen Keller

The connection between economics and the moral virtue of loving our neighbor is unmistakable to the observant. ~ Joe R Kesler

Moral vices prosper by dressing themselves as virtues. ~ Kenneth Minogue

The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that we really are the selfish tyrants that the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said we are? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible? The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it. ~ Peter Singer

We hold all people to unspoken rules about who and how they should be, how they should think, and what they should say. We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes. Men don't cry. Feminists don't shave their legs. Southerners are racist. Everyone is, by virtue of being human, some kind of rule breaker, and my goodness, do we hate when the rules are broken. ~ Roxane Gay

Father Ratti had often explained, in Religious Knowledge class, that true humility did not mean a sense of worthlessness or the kind of timidity that caused some people to be cheated and bullied all their lives. The virtue of humility, Ratti said, was merely the faculty of intelligence operating properly "The man of wisdom," Ratti explained once, "fears only one man on earth. Do you know who that is?" And when everybody guessed wrong - some said the Pope, some said King Ferdinand - Ratti said, "The man of wisdom fears himself. He knows who it is who tells him the most plausible lies, the lies he wants to believe. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy. ~ Henryk Sienkiewicz

When your heart overfloweth broad and full like the river, a blessing and a danger to the lowlanders: there is the origin of your virtue. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I've arrived at the age where a platonic friendship can be sustained on the highest moral plane. ~ Charlie Chaplin

The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred. ~ Daniel Berrigan

The police, as servants of law, must be of a high order of integrity. For their word is perforce believed by the virtue of their profession. ~ Agatha Christie

The post-68 left has tended to overvalue the negative capability of remaining in doubt, scepticism and uncertainties - this may be an aesthetic virtue, but it is a political vice. The self-doubt that has been endemic on the left since the 60s is little in evidence on the right – one reason that the right has been so successful in imposing its programme. Many on the left now quail at the thought of formulating a programme, still less "imposing" one. But we have to give up on the belief that people will spontaneously turn to the left, or that neoliberalism will collapse without our actively dismantling it. ~ Mark Fisher

There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best ... Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god ... Finally, what was left to be sacrificed? Didn't people have to sacrifice god himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Do nondoing, strive for nonstriving, savor the flavorless, regard the small as important, make much of little, repay enmity with virtue; plan for difficulty when it is still easy, do the great while it is still small. The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are easy; the greatest things in the world must be done while they are small. ~ Laozi

There is no man to whom a good mind comes before an evil one. It is the evil mind that gets first hold on all of us. Learning virtue means unlearning vice. We should therefore proceed to the task of freeing ourselves from faults with all the more courage because, when once committed to us, the good is an everlasting possession; virtue is not unlearned. ~ Seneca.

I would guess, perhaps too optimistically, that nearly ever racist believes it is morally wrong to be racist. And since nearly every person thinks of themselves as being moral, then a racist must consciously and subconsciously employ tortured logic in order to explain away their racism--in order to believe themselves to be nonracist. ~ Sherman Alexie

Liberal gardeners are people who feel that, through gardening, we can alleviate our sense of alienation from nature; and that, through good gardening, we can repair some of the damage we have done to our environment. The most extreme liberals believe that there is an original or a natural state in which the environment would be if we hadn't shown up on the scene, and that we have not only the ability but also a moral imperative to help nature return to this state. ~ Deborah Needleman

The responsibility of the executive is (1) to create and maintain a sense of purpose and moral code for the organization; (2) to establish systems of formal and informal communication; and (3) to ensure the willingness of people to cooperate. ~ Chester Barnard

Total consistency is an appalling virtue. ~ Laurence Lerner

A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and mathematics; he may be an authority in psychology, biology, or astronomy; he may know all the discovered truths pertaining to geology and natural science; but if he has not with this knowledge that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practice virtue and holiness in his personal life, he is not truly an educated man.
Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting. ~ David O. McKay

In actual fact, however, the revolt of Ibsen and Shaw against the conventional nineteenth century drama could very well be described as a return to Shakespeare, as an attempt once again to present human beings in their historical and social setting and not, as playwrights since the Restoration had done, either as wholly private or as embodiments of the social manners of a tiny class. Shakespeare's plays, it is true, are not, in the Shavian sense, "dramas of thought," that is to say, not one of his characters is an intellectual: it is true, as Shaw says, that, when stripped of their wonderful diction, the philosophical and moral views expressed by his characters are commonplaces, but the number of people in any generation or society whose thoughts are not commonplace is very small indeed. On the other hand, there is hardly one of his plays which does not provide unending food for thought, if one cares to think about it. ~ W. H. Auden

At this point, an urgent question arises: ... Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being, one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism? Briefly, is the division of labor, at the same time that it is a law of nature, also a moral rule of human conduct; and, if it has this latter character, why and in what degree? ~ Emile Durkheim

Mightily and long must a man strive within himself before he learn altogether to overcome himself, and to draw his whole affection towards God. When a man resteth upon himself, he easily slippeth away unto human comforts. But a true lover of Christ, and a diligent seeker after virtue, falleth not back upon those comforts, nor seeketh such sweetness as may be tasted and handled, but desireth rather hard exercises, and to undertake severe labours for Christ. ~ Thomas A Kempis

By virtue of their English and the light color of their faces, these teachers determine the words that creep into my dreams at night. I envy them. I want what they have. I want my words to matter. ~ Daisy Hernandez

Every day, people say crappy things about my band or whatever, but I live a positive existence. I got through everything by virtue of having the same passion that I've had through the years. ~ Andy Biersack

To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denominator to make sure no-one becomes too fine for our touted democracy. We are almost at the point of regarding every virtue as elitist. ~ Florence King

If then virtue is something in the soul, and necessarily good, it must be a matter of
mindfulness. For all other qualities of soul are in themselves neither good nor harmful.
As accompanied by forethought or thoughtlessness, they become good or harmful. This
argument shows that virtue, being good, must be a kind of mindfulness. ~ Plato

Protestants, from the first, have been distinguished from their opponents by what they do not believe; to throw over one more dogma is, therefore, merely to carry the movement one stage further. Moral fervor is the essence of the matter. ~ Bertrand Russell

The biggest difference between Jesus Christ and ethical and moral teachers who have been deified by man. Is that these moralists came to make bad people good. Jesus came to make dead people live! ~ Ravi Zacharias

Our government is certainly going to fall like a rope of sand if unsupported by the moral fabric of God's Word. The moral structure in our country grew from Judeo-Christian roots. When those values are applied, they produce moral fruits. But if that structure disappears, the moral sentiment that shapes our nation's goals will disappear with it. ~ Billy Graham

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy. ~ Bertrand Russell

Today I detach from other people's dramas. I love them and pray for them. I am a role model of peace for them. But I no longer rescue them, or put my own needs last. It is my right to be happy and to help others as I feel lovingly guided instead from guilt or obligation. I respect my feelings and expect others to do so too. And so it is! ~ Doreen Virtue

Schools must inquire deeper into their own practices, explore new ways to motivate their learners, make use of learning styles, introduce multiple intelligences, integrate learning, and teach thinking, and in the process discover the passion and moral purpose that makes teaching exciting and effective. ~ Michael Fullan

There is a Party of fiscal responsibility ... economic responsibility ... social responsibility ... civic responsibility ... personal responsibility ... and moral responsibility. That party is the Democratic Party. ~ Howard Dean

If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other direction ... Kids can sniff out an adult agenda from an early age. I'm writing for entertainment, not to impress literary judges. ~ Jeff Kinney

Today's ideology masquerades as pragmatism with that pragmatism reduced to the simplistic assumption that the basis of human nature is self-interest, a view which discount philanthropy, discredits altruism, with the only motive deserving of trust self-promotion and self-advancement.
This so-called pragmatism is wicked and it is doubly so because it is held up as being both realistic and a virtue. Whereas it is shallow, shabby and all too often callous. ~ Alan Bennett

Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, "How can you live with yourself?"

The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. "I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them--because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them." He took a short, hard swallow of wine. "Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I'd give him the Crown. ~ Jim Butcher

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. ~ Richard Steele