I cannot love anyone if I hate myself. That is the reason why we feel so extremely uncomfortable in the presence of people who are noted for their special virtuousness, for they radiate an atmosphere of the torture they inflict on themselves. That is not a virtue but a vice.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.
I used to be snow white, but I drifted.
If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.
If we had to seek virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is within us, it suffices to avoid bad thoughts and to keep our souls turned toward the Lord.
If we've learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.
Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water.
Mona Lisa is the only beauty who went through history and retained her reputation.
Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.
Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
Of all the benefits which virtue confers on us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.
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