Who sows virtue reaps honor.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
—John Locke
Virtue consisted in winning: it consisted in being bigger, stronger, handsomer, richer, more popular, more elegant, more unscrupulous than other people—in dominating them, bullying them, making them suffer pain, making them look foolish, getting the better of them in every way. Life was hierarchical and whatever happened was right. There were the strong, who deserved to win and always did win, and there were the weak, who deserved to lose and always did lose, everlastingly.
—George Orwell
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
—Cicero
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
—R. Buckminster Fuller
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
—George Washington
The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds.
—Carl Hilty in Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life
The home is the chief school of human virtues.
—William Ellery Channing
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
—Peter Ustinov