It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

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

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

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

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

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.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

The nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

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

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

The object of the superior man is truth.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.