Wendy McElroy Quotes

A coerced "choice" does not reflect virtue, only compliance.

Wendy McElroy

• Virtue
• Compliance
• Coerced

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Quotes to Explore

• A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.

  

  Han Fei
  • Law
  • Virtue
  • Himself

• A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • Like
  • Gold
  • Virtue

• Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

  

  Napoleon Bonaparte
  • History
  • Philosophy
  • Virtue

• Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • Beauty
  • Virtue
  • Mask

• Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

  

  Baruch Spinoza
  • Happiness
  • Virtue
  • Reward

• Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

  

  George Bernard Shaw
  • Virtue
  • Effect
  • Prudence

• Virtue has her heroes tooAs well as Fame and Fortune.

  

  Friedrich Schiller
  • Virtue
  • Fame
  • Fortune

• Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellowmen, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.

  

  Archibald Alexander
  • God
  • Respect
  • Virtue

• There is that in the soul of man which must respond to the highest in virtue. It may not respond at once. Human nature can easily be over-faced by examples too remote and austere. Moreover, human nature can easily deny God because the whole race has long been in rebellion against Him. Yet there is that in human nature which calls out to the supreme examples of virtue: owns, as it were, the intention of God who made it, and feels the unmistakable homesickness of the soul.

  

  Bill Vaughan
  • God
  • Long
  • May

• It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live!

  

  Emile Zola
  • Women
  • Live
  • She

• Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the old Christian rule is, "Either marriage, with completely faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence."

  

  C. S. Lewis
  • Christian
  • Marriage
  • Virtue

• There are two restraints which God has laid upon human nature, shame and fear; shame is the weaker, and has place only in those in whom there are some reminders of virtue.

  

  John Tillotson
  • Humans
  • Virtue
  • Shame

• Piety and virtue are not only delightful for the present, but they leave peace and contentment behind them.

  

  John Tillotson
  • Virtue
  • Behinds
  • Contentment

• Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

  

  Aristotle
  • Life
  • Effort
  • Happiness

• Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by Moral Virtue.

  

  Aristotle
  • Moral
  • End
  • Virtue

• The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

  

  Aristotle
  • Wisdom
  • Justice
  • Virtue

• Let us be well persuaded that everyone of us possesses happiness in proportion to his virtue and wisdom, and according as he acts in obedience to their suggestion.

  

  Aristotle
  • Wisdom
  • Happiness
  • Virtue

• For we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use.

  

  Aristotle
  • Know
  • Virtue
  • Order

• He who seeks repentance for the past, should woo the angel virtue for the future.

  

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
  • Future
  • Virtue
  • Angel

• Dessert without cheese is like a beauty with only one eye

  

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
  • Eye
  • Cheesy
  • Cheese

• This is an extremely ambitious book. In addition to science and mathematics, Byers brings to bear insights from literature, philosophy, religion, history, anthropology, medicine, and psychology. The Blind Spot breaks new ground, and represents a major step forward in the philosophy of science. The book is also a page-turner, which is rare for this topic.

  

  Joseph Auslander
  • Book
  • Literature
  • Philosophy

• A coerced "choice" does not reflect virtue, only compliance.

  

  Wendy McElroy
  • Virtue
  • Compliance
  • Coerced