Ah, Eugénie, have done with virtues! Among the sacrifices that can be made to those counterfeit divinities, is there one worth an instant of the pleasures one tastes in outraging them?
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself.
Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.
Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.
Nature does not loathe virtue: it is unaware of its existence.
Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue.
And be on they guard against the good and the just! They would fain curcify those who devise their own virtueâ they hate the lonesome ones.
To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.
Blushing is the color of virtue.
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the restraints of conscience.
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
The only reward of virtue is virtue.
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.
That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much only as we possess.
The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it.
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
O Washington! thrice glorious name, What due rewards can man decree-- Empires are far below thy aim, And scepters have no charms for thee; Virtue alone has your regards, And she must be your great reward.
For everything divine and human, virtue, fame, and honor, now obey the alluring influence of riches. [Lat., Omnis enim res, Virtus, fama, decus, divina, humanaque pulchris Divitiis parent.]
Thy wife is a constellation of virtues; she's the moon, and thou art the man in the moon.