Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. — Aristotle
We assume therefore that moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite. — Aristotle
Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul. — Plato
Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency. — Aristotle
A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others. — Charles Darwin
The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. — Confucius
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. — David Starr Jordan
Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue. — Confucius
Virtuous Life Quotes
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. — Frederick Douglass
It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life. — Saint John Chrysostom
The single thought that can empower us to empower the world: Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous-because the human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life. — Alex Epstein
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.
One should not say that it is impossible to reach a virtuous life; but one should say that it is not easy. Nor do those who have reached it find it easy to maintain. — Anthony the Great
Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities. — Aristotle
He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections. — Samuel Adams
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.
Let it be enough for you to have bread and live virtuously and poorly like Christ, as I do here. I live meanly and don't bother about life or honor ... and I live with the greatest toil and a thousand worries. It is now about 15 years since I had a happy hour. — Michelangelo
The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life. — Sigmund Freud
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness. — Reinhold Niebuhr
Virtue And Happiness Quotes
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. — Marcus Aurelius
Happiness does not fall out of the blue and dreams will not come true by themselves. We need to be down-to-earth and work hard. We should uphold the idea that working hard is the most honorable, noblest, greatest and most beautiful virtue. — Xi Jinping
There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy. — Chanakya
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. — Joseph Smith Jr.
Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. — Joseph Smith, Jr.
Take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. — Marcus Aurelius
Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually. — Martin Seligman
The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained... — George Washington
The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society. — Mary Wollstonecraft
To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind - this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for. — Henry Van Dyke
Moral relativism has a reputation for being compassionate, caring and humane, but it is an extremely useful philosophy for tyrants. — Peter Kreeft
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. — Isaac Asimov
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever the right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established. — Ludwig Feuerbach
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. — Bill Watterson
Freemasonry embraces the highest moral laws and will bear the test of
any system of ethics or philosophy ever promulgated for the uplift of man. — Douglas MacArthur
Bad company ruins good morals.
Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing. — Anthony Burgess
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. — Mark Twain
God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. — Douglas Adams
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul. — Karl Jaspers
Being Virtuous Quotes
Some are born virtuous, some become virtuous. To be good by nature is indeed fortunate but to become good is like walking on a double-edged sword; it takes a longer time and is more painful. — Umera Ahmed
The teaching of one virtuous person can influence many; that which has been learned well by one generation can be passed on to a hundred. — Kano Jigoro
Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. — Benjamin Franklin
Boasting of wealth and virtue brings your demise.
He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. — Samuel Adams
We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of citizens. I am sick and tired of the American citizen being demeaned and treated as a second-class citizen while anybody who crosses the border is treated as the most virtuous human being on the face of the earth. — Mark Levin
You may be a well-educated, clever and virtuous person, but those qualities will not necessarily make you a successful businessman. You must give your best to each and every task you take on, and reflect on your performance with an honest and unprejudiced eye. — Konosuke Matsushita
Be virtuous and you will be eccentric. — Mark Twain
Blessed be they as virtuous, who when they feel their virile members swollen with lust, visit a brothel rather than grind at some husband's private mill. — Cato the Younger
Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular. — Charles Caleb Colton
The merit of the cross does not consist in its heaviness, but in the manner in which we carry it. I would even say that it is sometimes more virtuous to carry a cross of straw than a heavy cross because we have to be more attentive for fear of losing it. — Saint Francis de Sales
Virtuous Man Quotes
In my idea General Washington is the greatest man; for I look upon him as the most virtuous. — Marquis de Lafayette
Americans rouse - be unanimous, be virtuous, be firm, exert your courage, trust in Heaven, and nobly defy the enemies both of God and man! — Alexander Hamilton
The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit. — Confucius
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear. — Confucius
The people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals. — Aldous Huxley
Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her winged spirit Is feathered often times with heavenly words, And, like her beauty, ravishing and pure. — George Chapman
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
The superior man honors his virtuous nature, and maintains constant inquiry and study, seeking to carry it out to its breadth and greatness, so as to omit none of the more exquisite and minute points which it embraces, and to raise it to its greatest height and brilliancy. — Confucius
The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Even in decline, a virtuous man increases the beauty of his behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards. — Sakya Pandita
The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men. — Voltaire
Moral Ethics Quotes
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant
Do the right thing because it is right. — Immanuel Kant
How sweet to be a Cloud. Floating in the Blue! — A. A. Milne
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Solidarity is based on the principle that we are willing to put ourselves at risk to protect each other. — Starhawk
The meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future. The claim that we would not have morals or ethics without religion is extraordinary. Animals in nature seem to behave in moral ways without organized religion. — Bill Nye
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. — Robert Noyce
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide. — Eric Clapton
Stand for something. Don't quest for popularity at the expense of morality and ethics and honesty. — Howard Cosell
People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad. — Stephen King
The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Love Virtue Quotes
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. — Ernest Hemingway
Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues. — Brother Lawrence
When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their follow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them. — Saint John Chrysostom
Even if we have thousands of acts of great virtue to our credit, our confidence in being heard must be based on God's mercy and His love for men. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved. — Saint John Chrysostom
Our virtues are made by love, and our sins are caused by the lack of it. — Hazrat Inayat Khan
When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues. — Honore de Balzac
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail. — Francis Quarles
For our personal advancement in virtue and truth one quality is sufficient, namely, love; to advance humanity there must be two, love and intelligence; to accomplish the Great Work there must be three love, intelligence, and activity. And yet love is ever the root and the source. — Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of Heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the Angels. — Pope Gregory I
Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her. — John Milton
Moral Education Quotes
Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education. — Charlotte Mason
There is no god and there is no soul. Hence, there is no need for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is dead and buried. There is no room for fixed and natural law or permanent moral absolutes. — John Dewey
His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy. — Woody Allen
We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys. — Christina Hoff Sommers
Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining. — Desmond Tutu
Whoever wants to be a leader should educate himself before educating others. Before preaching to others he should first practice himself. Whoever educates himself and improves his own morals is superior to the man who tries to teach and train others. — Ali ibn Abi Talib
The object of basic education is the physical, intellectual and moral development of children through the medium of handicraft. — Mahatma Gandhi
It is a mistake to try to impose Christian beliefs on children and to make them the basis of moral training. The moral education of children is much too important a matter to be built on such foundations. — Margaret E. Knight
It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible. — Desmond Tutu
Moral Life Quotes
The most important thing in life is to dare. The most complicated thing in life is to be afraid. The smartest thing in the world is to try to be a moral person. — Shimon Peres
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Improve the World Through Music. — Plato
Females in our generation morals are just out the window. Materialistic things aren't life. I'd rather walk in the rain with a man who treats me like a queen than to ride in a Benz with a man who treats me like crap. — Jhene Aiko
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
Do not try to fix whatever comes in your life. Fix yourself in such a way that whatever comes, you will be fine. — Jaggi Vasudev
Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. — C. S. Lewis
Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. — Emile Durkheim
One must speak for a struggle for a new culture, that is, for a new moral life that cannot but be intimately connected to a new intuition of life, until it becomes a new way of feeling and seeing reality — Antonio Gramsci
We have to build a better man before we can build a better society. — Paul Tillich
Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to. — Emile Durkheim
Moral Excellence Quotes
The best way to overcome the world is not with morality or self-discipline. Christians overcome the world by seeing the beauty and excellence of Christ. They overcome the world by seeing something more attractive than the world: Christ — Thomas Chalmers
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. — Aristotle
There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence. — Philip James Bailey
As the excellence of steel is strength, and the excellence of art is beauty, so the excellence of mankind is moral character. — Aiden Wilson Tozer
Old age is an excellent time for outrage. — Maggie Kuhn
Many humanists have argued that happiness involves a combination of hedonism and creative moral development; that an exuberant life fuses excellence and enjoyment, meaning and enrichment, emotion and cognition. — Paul Kurtz
Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself! — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The virtues [moral excellence] therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit. — Aristotle
Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Without Virtue there can be no liberty — Benjamin Rush
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster. — Douglas MacArthur
The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. — Benjamin Rush
Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me... Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness. — Immanuel Kant
It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people. — Richard Henry Lee
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exulted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the highest virtues. — John Maynard Keynes
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. — Edmund Burke
Tolerance, a term which we sometimes use in place of the words respect, mercy, generosity, or forbearance, is the most essential element of moral systems; it is a very important source of spiritual discipline and a celestial virtue of perfected people. — Fethullah Gulen
When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder. — Lao Tzu
Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage. — William Slim
Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage. — William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim
When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are. — Ayn Rand
Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. — Samuel Adams
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
The aim of education is to guide young persons in the process
through which they shape themselves as human persons-armed with knowledge, strength of judgment, and moral virtues-while at the same time conveying to them the spiritual heritage of the nation and the civilization in which they are involved. — Jacques Maritain
We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Watergate is the great liberal illusion that you can have public virtue without private morality. — Clare Boothe Luce
Social taboos are shy like virtue; once lost, there is no remedy — Gunnar Myrdal
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits . . . it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers. — Fisher Ames
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 great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. — Patrick Henry
The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship. — William Howard Taft
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. — Benjamin Franklin
Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue. — Francis Bacon
It may here be justly said, that genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue. — Friedrich Schiller
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. — Karl Kraus
Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. — Ayn Rand
Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom. — Paul Kurtz
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
In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. — J. M. Coetzee
Vice, virtue - it's best not to be too moral. You'll cheat yourself out of too much life. — Ruth Gordon
Character is made up of core moral principles called the Six Pillars of Character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, caring, fairness and citizenship. Each of these virtues are independently important but together they provide the foundation for a worthy life. — Michael Josephson
The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue. — James A. Froude
And so we shall have to do more than register and more than vote; we shall have to create leaders who embody virtues we can respect, who have moral and ethical principles we can applaud with enthusiasm. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding and behavior of large portions of the youth population in the United States today. — William Damon
I'm not saying that atheists can't act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it's as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong. — William A. Dembski
Those who enjoy the blessings of liberty under a divinely inspired constitution should promote morality, and they should practice what the Founding Fathers called civic virtue. — Dallin H. Oaks
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
Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular. — Arthur Schopenhauer
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions. — Aristotle
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them. — Thomas Aquinas
So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends even to his moral character. Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously: attentive to cleanliness, who was a consummate villain. — Benjamin Thompson
There's nothing of any importance in life — except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. — Ayn Rand
Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society. — John Adams
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of moral virtues quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about moral virtues to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of moral virtues quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
