I don't think virtue has a downside. I think human nature does.
They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.
Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.
RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.
No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.
The great virtue of those who seek the spiritual path is courage.
There is hardly any deviancy, no matter how reprehensible in one context, which is not extolled as a virtue in another. There are no natural crimes, only legal ones.
The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
Pain is God's midwife, that helps some virtue into existence.
The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.
For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours.
Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.
All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.
Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory.
The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.
In ancient times, those who wished to illuminate the world with virtue first brought order to their nations. Wishing to order well their nations, they first harmonized their families. Wishing to harmonize their families, they first cultivated themselves. Wishing to cultivate themselves, they first rectified their minds. Those who wished to rectify their minds first made their intentions sincere.
