Quotes Tagged "virtue"

Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.

The good which every man, who follows after virtue, desires for himself he will also desire for other men...

I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake.

Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.

It is an ill wind that does not blow some good. For example, it is well to be born in a decadent age; for one may obtain a reputation for virtue at a bargain price.

In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital 'S,' is not virtue - it's faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection.

The world is a busy place filled with many busy businesses, both the Godly and the ungodly. It means before you go on to accept any activity or event that comes into the world, you must weigh its Values, examine the Virtues, listen to Views and then you give your Verdict. Satan is not wise; he is just crafty!

By the external appearance of your knowledge, you have attained (high) ranks and reverence with the people! So seek with Allah higher ranks and closeness by virtue of your hidden good deeds. And know that these two ranks, one cancels out the other.

God has created for us this green heaven, called the Earth. God has created the Earth as our playground, where through rights and wrongs, virtues and sins, rightful actions and mistakes, we can learn and evolve to rediscover our true nature of godliness.

We knew the promise had never been safety, or that bad things would not happen if we were good and virtuous. The promise is only that God is in it with us, no matter what it is.

One’s virtue cannot always be trusted; for some, use their righteousness for self-righteous purposes

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.

I know, brother, that you are a straightforward man, and that you pride yourself on it. But put one question to yourself: why in fact should one tell the truth? What obliges us to do it? And why do we consider telling the truth a virtue? Imagine that you meet a madman, who claims that he is a fish and that we are all fish. Are you going to argue with him? Are you going to undress in front of him and show him that you don't have fins? Are you going to say to his face what you think? Well, tell me!' His brother was silent and Edward went on: 'If you told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, only what you really thought, you would enter into a serious conversation with a madman and you yourself would become mad. And it is the same way with the world that surrounds us. If I obstinately told a man the truth to his face, it would mean I was taking him seriously. And to take something so unimportant seriously means to become less than serious oneself. I, you see, must lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become one of them myself.

As it fades, I see the truth - in plain sight, yet hidden all along. We are all children of blood and bone. All instruments of vengeance and virtue. This truth holds me close, rocking me like a child in a mother's arms. It binds me in its love as death swallows me in its grasp.

Tolerance! The virtue that makes one bite his tongue so that he can tear out his hair.

Where we fall are the stepping-stones for our journey.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.