See also: Character, Conscience, Good, Ethics, Ideals

Alexander Pope:

In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast,
Their Virtue fix'd, 'tis fixed as in a frost.

Aristotle:

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

Aristotle:

The excess of virtue is a vice.

Aristotle:

In justice is all virtues found in sum.

Cato the Elder:

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago.

Cicero:

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

Cicero:

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Clare Booth Luce:

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

Confucius:

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

E.Y. Harburn:

Virtue is its own revenge.

Erik H. Erikson:

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

Francis Bacon:

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Friedrich Nietzsche:

Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.

George Bernard Shaw:

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.

George Bernard Shaw:

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

George Orwell:

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Horace Mann:

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.

John Locke:

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

Lyndon B. Johnson:

We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.

Maya Angelou :

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Mohandas Gandhi:

The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.

Oscar Wilde:

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Rene Dubos:

Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.

Celebrations of Life, 1981

Robert S. Lynd:

Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.

Sam Adams:

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue.

Spinoza:

Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice.

Sydney J. Harris:

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest," but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

Theodore M. Hesburgh:

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.

Thomas Jefferson:

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

All ... religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest. Test each sect by its best or its worst as you will, by its high-water mark of virtue or its low-water mark of vice. But falsehood begins when you measure the ebb of any other religion against the flood-tide of your own. There is a noble and a base side to every history.

Voltaire:

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.