Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.
Sympathy is a virtue unknown in nature.
Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best of talents; it supplies the place of many talents.
Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best of talents; it supplies the place of many talents.
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.
No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook: most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue.
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
Tenderness is a virtue.
The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.
There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so inveterably dishonest that theft is to them a master passion.
Original thoughts can be understood only in virtue of the unoriginal elements which they contain.
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
The plastic virtues: Purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection.
In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.... Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?
The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.
Ne'er blush'd, unless, in spreading vice's snares, She blunder'd on some virtue unawares.
We do not despise all those who have vices, but we despise all those who have not a single virtue.
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
If individuals have no vices, their virtues may be of use to us.
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.
Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring p modestly around it. Then you'll have the miser who's no liar; and the drunkard who's the benefactor of the whole city.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.