In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

If you are not being bullied all I would say – cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well – is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there’s someone in your class that maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

I didn’t always have 14,000 people wanting to hang out with me on a Saturday night.

The infinite faith I have in people’s ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

In my experience, many people confuse being cowardly with being nice.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

People who think too much before they act don’t act too much.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

I think there is a little magic in the fact that I’m so totally real but look so artificial at the same time.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

I’m crepuscular.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

Action is character.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn’t have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing, and all of a sudden I had tons of friends.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

I don’t know how to work a room. It’s a real skill.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

I have Asperger’s, I’m on the autism spectrum, so I don’t really care about social codes. It makes you think differently.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.