Virtue Quotes · Page 199

I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.

— George Orwell

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.

— Anonymous

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

— Voltaire

Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

— Marquis de Sade

A companion that feasts the company with and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is…

— Izaak Walton

Debased men, but they all had something in common: They showed a keen regard for virtue, and tried to dress themselves in…

— Orson Scott Card

Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle…

— Oscar Wilde

Chastity prays for me, piety sings, Innocence sweetens my last black breath, Modesty hides my thighs in her wings, And all the…

— Dylan Thomas

Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking…

— Ayn Rand

A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is "South Park" - the hugely popular American cartoon show - and the…

— Adam Gopnik

It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to…

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A return to virtue must begin individually in our hearts and in our homes. You are the guardians of virtue.

— Elaine S. Dalton

Republics, one after another . . . have perished from a want of intelligence and virtue in the masses of the people. . . .

— Horace Mann

The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and preemptory spirit of excise laws.

— Alexander Hamilton

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

— Thomas B. Macaulay

Greediness consists in ravishing the goods of another through violence or cunning, as in the two noble professions of the conqueror and…

— Augustin Thierry

When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.

— Madame de Stael

“ A lie told in the service of truth is virtue.”

— Brent Weeks

The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no…

— Walter Lippmann

It was [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well…

— Edward Gibbon

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, but let us part fair foes; I do believe, though I have…

— Anonymous

Can words such as Orthodox, Jew, or Catholic really express some sort of exclusive personal virtues or merits?

— Anton Chekhov

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural.

— Sallust

Teach economy. That is one of the first and highest virtues. It begins with saving money.

— Abraham Lincoln