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These are times in which a genius would wish to live ... Great necessities call out great virtues. Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams & mother of John Quincy Adams
Before I knowed it, I was saying out loud, The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat. John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do – back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. Friedrich Nietzsche
We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent. Friedrich Nietzsche
The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws. Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke
Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable ... One false step involved her in endless ruin. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. Rene Descartes
Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. C S Lewis
All his [David] life he was only really looking for virtue. Simon Schama’s Power of Art: David, BBC 2006
The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable. Thomas Carlyle, Signs of the Times (1829)
Is there no virtue extant? The Hollow Crown: Henry IV part I starring Jeremy Irons & Tom Hiddleston & Alun Armstrong & Joe Armstrong & John Ashton & Will Attenborough & Conrad Asquith & Simon Russell Beale & David Beames & Jim Bywater & Alexandra Clatworthy et al, director Richard Eyre, Falstaff, BBC 2012
Come, sing me a bawdy song, make me merry. I am as virtually given as a gentleman need to be: virtuous enough; swore little; diced not – above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not – above once in a quarter – of an hour; paid money that I borrowed - three or four times; lived well, and in good compass. And now I live out of all order, out of all compass. William Shakespeare, I Henry IV III iii 14-18, Sir John to Russell
Ah, my gracious Lord, these days are dangerous.
Virtue is choked with foul ambition,
And charity chased hence by rancour’s hand. William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention: II Henry VI III i 142-144, Gloucester to others
’Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud –
But, God knows, thy share thereof is small;
’Tis virtue that doth make them most admired. William Shakespeare, Richard Duke of York I iv 129-131, Richard to others
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II ii 21-22, Nurse to Peter
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv 153
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habit’s devil, is angel yet in this. ibid. III iv 160
Is it a world to hide virtue in? William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I iii 126, Sir Toby
Anything that’s mended is but patched. Virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. ibid. I v 43-45, Feste
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure II I 38, Escalus
Virtue? A fig! ’Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. William Shakespeare, Othello I iii @319
… and do but see his vice.
’Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
The one as long as th’other. ibid. II iii 115-117
Were virtue is, there are more virtuous. ibid. III iii 190
… his virtues
Will plead like angels. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth I vii 18-19, Macbeth
O infinite virtue! com’st thou smiling from
The world’s great snare uncaught? William Shakespeare, Anthony & Cleopatra IV xiii 17
The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. William Shakespeare, The Tempest V i 27-38, Prospero
Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues. Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues. Elizabeth Gaskell
Virtue is the fount whence honour springs. Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great 1590
Let them recognize virtue and rot for having lost it. Persius, Satires III i 38
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. John Milton, Comus, 1637
Among the threats
Of malice or of sorcery, or that power
Which erring men call chance, this I hold firm,
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled. ibid.
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 ... that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644
What’s needed in this world is an accommodating sort of virtue. Moliere aka Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue. Moliere
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. David Hume
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever. Alexander Pope, Epistles to Several Persons, 1735