For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours.
Who knows his virtues name or place, hath none.
He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
All of humanity now has the option to "make it" successfully and sustainably, by virtue of our having minds, discovering principles and being able to employ these principles to do more with less.
Freedom without virtue isn't freedom - it will eventually destroy a society.
The surest step toward joy in the morning is virtue in the evening.
There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.
What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.
Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.
Every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.
Those who are firm, enduring, simple and unpretentious are the nearest to virtue.
No one can create negativity or stress within you. Only you can do that by virtue of how you process your world.
A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.
Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.
One of the real dangers of loyalty is that it may become associated with certain types of group-think, chauvinism, jingoism, and thus become socially destructive in ways that many other virtues are not likely to be when they are corrupted. Nationalism and patriotism are especially prone to misguided excess.
I have many times been praised for my lack of animosity towards the Germans. It's not a philosophical virtue. It's a habit of having my second reactions before the first.
No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue.
Nationalism, like virtue, has its own reward.
Peace is the soft and holy shadow that virtue casts.