Virtue

“ The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,
Less pleasing far than virtue’s very tears:
Good, from each object, from each place acquired
For ever exercised, yet never tired;
Never elated, while one man’s oppressed;
Never dejected while another’s blessed;
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain. ”

“ What a compliment even to virtue, when the people are rejoiced to see it in office, and when the world, all worldly as it is, is, however, well pleased to have the godly for its defenders and judges! What an attraction to virtue, when it is seen to have the promise, not only of the life that now is, but of that also which is to come! ”

“ Is it to seek happiness, or to seek virtue and knowledge?—Attend, and I will show you that in finding one, you shall find the three. To be happy, we must be virtuous; and when we are virtuous, we are wise. Let us then begin: and first, let us for awhile hush our passions into slumber, forget our prejudices, and cast away our vanity and our pride. Thus patient and modest, let us come to the feet of Philosophy; let us say to her, ‘Behold us, scholars and children, gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and passions.—Teach us their use, and their guidance. ”

“ On lighten’d minds, that bask in virtue’s beams,
Nothing hangs tedious, nothing old revolves
In that for which they long, for which they live.
Their glorious efforts, wing’d with heavenly hope,
Each rising morning sees still higher rise;
Each bounteous dawn its novelty presents
To worth maturing, new strength, lustre, fame; 389
While nature’s circle, like a chariot-wheel
Rolling beneath their elevated aims,
Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour;
Advancing virtue, in a line to bliss;
Virtue, which Christian motives best inspire!
And bliss, which Christian schemes alone ensure! ”

“ Uncommon is the highest virtue, and unprofiting, beaming is it, and soft of lustre: a bestowing virtue is the highest virtue.
Verily, I divine you well, my disciples: ye strive like me for the bestowing virtue. What should ye have in common with cats and wolves?
It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul. ”

“ Do you call the notion of excellence strange? You will next say that virtue itself is an 'Idola!' But I tell you, there is a reality in both; I know it, for I can feel it. Nobility, virtue, respect, and happiness, are not empty names. ”

“ If you want virtue, in the ancient sense, the sense of honour, of courage, of self-reliance, of the instinct to command, you must have a class of gentlemen. Otherwise virtue will be at best a mere conception in the head, a figment of the brain, not a character and a force. ”

“ In short, every tone and glance, not proved, but simply assumed, that virtue was nothing more than--the economus of the stomach, the refectorist of the senses, the officiating priestess and daughter of the body. Love fared like virtue. ”

“ To resist strong impulses, to subdue powerful passions, to silence the voice of vehement desire, is a strong and noble virtue. And the virtue rises in height, beauty, and grandeur in proportion to the strength of the impulses subdued. True virtue is not always visible to the gaze of the world. ”

“ To what purpose then is it to tell poor, lost, undone man, of the dignity of his rational nature, and the beauty of virtue?—Dear sir, for the sake of that God whom you love and adore, away with these shadows, and substitute in their place realities. ”

“ With the balm of many virtues;
Speaking words of ancient wisdom,
These the words the gray-beard uttered:
"Do not walk in thine own virtue,
Do not work in thine own power,
Walk in strength of thy Creator ”

“ What is more,—while my intellect, in its calmer hours, taught me that virtue was the only source of true felicity, my ungovernable passions set the otherwise sovereign reason at defiance, and trampled it under foot. ”

“ However beautiful and noble the words Morality and Virtue may sound, the universal distinct recognition of them as the useful is the only thing that will be truly salutary and beneficial to human society. ”

“ Virtue is knowledge. And therefore the law of virtuous growth is expressed in the maxim engraved on the Delphic temple, 'Know thyself.' Know thyself, that is, realise thyself; by obedience and self-control come to your full stature; be in fact what you are in possibility; satisfy yourself, in the only way in which true self-satisfaction is possible, by realising in yourself the law which constitutes your real being.
Virtue is knowledge. ”

“ Thus we are still brought back to our first position, that virtue is distinguished by the pleasure, and vice by the pain, that any action, sentiment or character gives us by the mere view and contemplation. ”

“ Among men, how often have I seen the most solid merit and knowledge neglected, unwelcome, or even rejected, for want of them! While flimsy parts, little knowledge, and less merit, introduced by the Graces, have been received, cherished, and admired. Even virtue, which is moral beauty, wants some of its charms if unaccompanied by them. ”

“ I wondered that Virtue—since, after all, it was but Virtue in the human form—never faltered, or was bewildered in these difficult passages, and while I wondered, a new keenness was imparted to my vision, and I saw the radiant form of Religion bending from Heaven and communicating her holy energy to Virtue. ”

“ All who aspire to virtue and the beautiful must study in their words, deeds, conversation, in short, in all the affairs of life, great and small, to aim in every way at beauty. Now what sensible man would deny that virtue is of all things the most beautiful? ”

“ They were never so much concerned with speculation as to the nature of virtue as with its practice. To them virtue was man’s highest aim, and by it they meant righteousness in the practical relations of life. They defined it as a condition of the soul in which the soul is in continuous harmony with itself. Virtue they subdivided into the four chief elements of intelligence, discretion, courage, and justice. ”

“ I place virtue as the first and most necessary of those endowments that belong to a man or a gentleman; as absolutely requisite to make him valued and beloved by others, acceptable or tolerable to himself. ”

“ Then turning to the multitudes he said, I come to you not in the name of man, nor in a strength my own;
8. The wisdom and the virtue that I bring to you are from above; they are the wisdom and the virtue of the God whom we adore. ”

“ Still I agree to make a further concession to the pride of Virtue. Let the moral qualities of some men be so excellent, and the tenour of their lives so pure, as to entitle them to a positive reward from the great searcher of hearts and inspector of human actions: would not the daily blessings of this life be a suitable recompense for such desert; would not health, and prosperity, and reputation, and peace of mind, be an adequate return for their best services? ”

“ There are five sources of injury to virtue.
Eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and thought. Of these, that which aims at virtue is the chief. What is it to aim at virtue? Why a man who aims at virtue practises what he approves and condemns what he does not practise. ”

“ for virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature, and moderation, and reason. ”

“ But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done, constitutes virtue. ”

“ The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, on the other; the two classes of motives conspiring to promote both our own good and the good of mankind. ”

“ Their vices may differ, but they are all equally remote from virtue, truth, justice, gratitude, the love of excellence, or any other of those qualities which constitute the real dignity of human nature. ”

“ "Pleasure's the only noble end
"To which all human powers should tend,
"And Virtue gives her heavenly lore,
"But to make Pleasure please us more.
"Wisdom and she were both designed
"To make the senses more refined,
"That man might revel, free from cloying,
"Then most a sage when most enjoying!" ”

“ Such powers are as sacred a trust from the Creator as any other gift, and ought to be equally used for his glory and the advancement of moral good. Virtue, indeed, in itself is venerable, but it must be attractive in order to be influential. And how attractive it might be, if the powers of pleasing, which can cover and even recommend the deformity of vice, were conscientiously excited in its behalf! ”

“ We shall, therefore, be prepared to find that virtue has as little claim to be considered the sole or chief good as pleasure; more especially after seeing that, so far as definition goes, to call a thing a virtue is merely to declare that it is a means to good. ”

“ Is virtue in this situation amongst men? does the education of man infuse into him just, faithful ideas of happiness—true notions of virtue—dispositions really favourable to the beings with whom he is to live? ”

“ To define virtue an habitual disposition to contribute to the happiness of others, is to concentrate virtue into a single one of its applications, is to suppress its general and essential character. Therein is the fundamental vice of the ethics of the eighteenth century. ”

“ This virtue, although necessary to all mankind, is nevertheless, a gift of Heaven, and the effect of a special grace. It forbids all doubt and enquiry; and it deprives man of the liberty of exercising his reason and reflection. ”

“ We have constantly to wonder how they analysed and defined the word Virtue, to which they so constantly appealed in letters, conversation, and books, as the sovereign object for our deepest and warmest adoration. ”

“ Is not the early and earnest iteration of such sententious wisdom in the ears of the young, —the honor which has been paid to sages who have elicited it, or felicitously expressed it,—the care with which these treasures of moral wisdom have been garnered up,—the perpetual efforts to conjoin elementary moral truth with the fancy and association,—is not all this a standing testimony to a consciousness of the value of such auxiliaries of virtue and duty? ”

“ 'tis virtue makes a king.' True, conscious honour is to feel no sin, He's arm'd without that's innocent within; Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass; ”

“ Moved by thine example to the practice of solid virtue, filled with hope at the view of the rewards bestowed upon thee, I resolve to imitate thee in the avoidance of all evil, and in the fulfilment of God's holy will. ”

“ and Virtue, who was of squalid look and dress, said, But if you obey me, you shall adorn yourself not with ornament nor beauty that passes away and perishes, but with everlasting and precious graces. ”

“ Respecting ethics, he taught, that happiness consists in the virtuous exercise of the mind; and that virtue consists in preserving that mean in all things, which reason and prudence prescribe. It is the middle path between two extremes, one of which is vicious through excess, the other through defect. ”

“ Not Virtue’s self is deified on earth;
Virtue has her relapses, conflicts, foes;
Foes, that ne’er fail to make her feel their hate.
Virtue has her peculiar set of pains.
True friends to virtue, last, and least, complain ”

“ The term 'virtue,' for instance, in one sense, namely, as signifying moral excellence in general, without distinction of kind, is strictly a singular term, as being the name of one attribute: but as applied to different varieties of moral excellence—justice, generosity, gentleness and so on—it is a common term, as being a name which is applicable, in the same sense, to a class of attributes. ”

“ Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue! Let your giving love and your knowledge be devoted to the the meaning of the earth! Thus do I pray and conjure you.
Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings! Ah, there hath always been so much flown-away virtue!
Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth—yeah, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning! ”

“ There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true. ”

“ Which little frames and little souls think great,
But stoop and bear it. Virtue's a mere name,
Or 'tis high venture that achieves high aim.
Those who have tact their poverty to mask
Before their chief get more than those who ask ”