Virtues Quotes
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He who possesses greatness is cruel towards his secondary virtues and considerations.
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As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.
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You don't love if you don't take the beloved's faults for virtues.
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Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.
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The absence of vices adds so little to the sum of one's virtues.
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Honesty is the foundation of a sound character and the keystone of all other virtues. It is the cement without which all other redeeming features are fractured and without anchor. A dishonest person may be kind, witty, and very capable, but the strength of character simply isn't there. Honesty does not come by degrees. A person is either all honest or he is dishonest. You can be true or you can be false, but you can't be both at the same time.
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In many cases hate a person is rooted in the involuntary estimate of its virtues.
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Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.
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Our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants.
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Purity strikes me as the most mysterious of the virtues and the more I think about it the less I know about it.
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The praise we seek for our own virtues sometimes tempts us to flatter the imperfections of other men.
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Those possest of the greatest Virtues are always least pleas'd with the repetition of them.
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We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.
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One should adpot only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand--or escape.
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Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues, and careful in speaking about them, if, in his practice, he has anything defective, the superior man dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license.
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The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?
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There are two things at which most men are grieved: when their faults are exposed, and when their virtues are concealed.
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There are odious virtues; such as inflexible severity, and an integrity that accepts of no favor.
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Some mothers need happy children; others need unhappy ones-otherwise they cannot prove their maternal virtues.
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Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
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My dear Watson," said Sherlock Holmes, "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.
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I've always been interested in our flaws as human beings, just as much as the virtues.
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We have divided the Virtues of the Soul into two groups, the Virtues of the Character and the Virtues of the Intellect.
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The best ruler, the one who is of any real value, should not only perform all the duties which fall to his lot, but should provide for the rest of his subjects, so that they can develop their virtues to the full.
