#Virtue Quotes

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

“"Fair, kind, and true" is all my argument,"Fair, kind, and true" varying to other words;And in this change is my invention spent,Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.”

“I had rather eleven died nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.”

“Assume a virtue if you have it not.”

“Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better.”

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”

“The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.”

“Charity itself fulfills the law. And who can sever love from charity?”

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

“Withal I did infer your lineaments,Being the right idea of your father,Both in your form and nobleness of mind;Laid open all your victories in Scotland,Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purposeUntouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.”

“As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue”

“Love thyself last, cherish those hearts that hate thee;Corruption wins not more than honesty.”

“Virtue's office never breaks men's troth.”

“Holy, fair, and wise is she;The heaven such grace did lend her,That she might admired be.”

“Still constant is a wondrous excellence.”

“Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use,Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse.”

“To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue.”

“No villainous bounty yet hath passed my heart;Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.”

“For honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.”

“I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm.”

“If our virtues did not go forth of us, it were all alike as if we had them not.”

“He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.”

“The summer's flow'r is to the summer sweet,Though to itself it only live and die'But if that flow'r with base infection meet,The basest weed outbraves his dignity:For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”

“What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs?”

“When once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right.”

“Such an actThat blurs the grace and blush of modesty;Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the roseFrom the fair forehead of an innocent love,And sets a blister there; makes marriage vowsAs false as dicers' oaths.”

“In struggling with misfortunes lies the true proof of virtue.”

“Thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.”

“A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.”

“Under the colour of commending him I have access my own love to prefer; But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.”

“So our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time”

“To some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies.”

“Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.”

“No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?”

“O, where is loyalty?If it be banished from the frosty head,Where shall it find a harbor in the earth?”

“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”

“Of chastity, the ornaments are chaste.”

“Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?”

“Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.”

“Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition”

“As long as civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.”

“Therefore it is most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself.”

“There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee.”

“So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.”

“Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.”

“Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.”

“Humility is the secret of the wise.”

“Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.”

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.”