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The
firm, the enduring, the simple,
and the modest are near to virtue.
Confucius |
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Virtue
is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or
abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in
doing good.
Joseph Butler
We value virtue but
do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the
earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the
embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.
John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley
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There is plenty of evidence
for an Original Virtue underlying Original Sin. . . .The knowledge that there
is a central chamber of the soul, blazing with the light of divine love and
wisdom, has come, in the course of history, to multitudes of human beings.
Aldous Huxley
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There
is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as
"moral indignation," which permits envy or hate to be acted
out under the guise of virtue.
Erich Fromm
Man for Himself
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The fragrance of the flower is never borne against
the breeze;
but the fragrance of human virtues diffuses itself
everywhere.
unattributed
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To be able to practice five things everywhere under
heaven constitutes
perfect virtue. . . gravity, generosity of soul,
sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
Confucius
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It has been my experience that people
who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln |
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Superior
virtue is not conscious
of itself as virtue, and so really
is a virtue. Inferior virtue cannot
let go of being virtuous,
and so is
not virtue. Superior virtue does
not seem to be busy, and yet there
is nothing which it does not
accomplish. Inferior virtue is
always busy, and yet in the end
leaves things undone.
Lao-tzu
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Virtues
are virtues because they give joy once they are practiced.
If a virtue does not give joy, it is not a virtue.
Hazrat Inayat Khan |
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Absolute
virtue is as sure to kill a person as absolute vice is,
let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it.
Samuel Butler |
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Whatever things are true, whatever things are
honest, whatever things
are just,
whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever
things are of good report;
if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think of these
things.
Philippians 4:8 |
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I cannot
praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and
unheeded, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks
out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for,
not without dust and heat.
John Milton |
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Crusaders for virtue are an awkward embarrassment for
any society;
they force us to make choices: either side with
them, which is difficult
and dangerous, or condemn them, which leads
to self-betrayal.
Edward Abbey
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To bring forth and preserve, to produce without
possessing, to act without
hope of reward, and to expand without waste, this is the supreme
virtue.
Lao-tzu
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Beauty without virtue is a flower without perfume.
French proverb |
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The moral virtues are habits, an habits are formed by
acts.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Suffering--how divine it is,
how misunderstood! We owe to it all
that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it
pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.
Anatole France
The Garden of Epicurus |
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Virtue is the
art of the whole life.
Philo
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Virtue is its
own reward, but it's very satisfactory when
Providence throws in some little additional bonus.
Woman's Home Companion
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I know only that what is
moral is what you feel good after
and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway |
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Courage is the
most important of all the virtues because without
courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
Maya Angelou |
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The
virtuous person contents him- or herself with dreaming
that which the wicked person does in actual life.
Sigmund Freud
The Interpretation of Dreams
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It is an infantile
superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be
thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from
knowledge.
Voltaire |
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Every
good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice,
the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close
to
the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are
just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of
Diogenes.
Victor Hugo
Les Misérables |
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When
even one virtue becomes our nature, the mind becomes clean
and tranquil. Then there is no need to practice meditation;
we will automatically be meditating always.
Swami Satchidananda
The Yoga Sutras
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Few are those who wish to be
endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
De Amicitia |
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The study of virtue is not quite the same as the study of morals (right and wrong, good and evil).
Aristotle defined the virtues simply as the ways of behaving that are most conducive to happiness in life.
Vice was defined as the ways of behaving least conducive to happiness.
He observed that the virtues always aim for balance and avoid the extremes of the vices.
Aristotle studied the virtues and the vices in his Nicomachean Ethics.
It was a book based on experience and observation, not conjecture, about the kind of happiness that was possible for human beings.
Cultivating judgment about the difference between virtue and vice is the beginning of wisdom, something that can never be out of
date.
Jordan Peterson
12 Rules for Life |
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People of virtue think beyond personal interests and consider how
their actions affect the whole. They are less concerned with what
they can get for themselves, and more concerned with
how they can contribute to the community.
Alan Cohen
The Tao Made
Easy |
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