Virtue Quotes

• What is virtue? It is to hold yourself to your fullest development as a person and as a responsible member of the human community. -Arthur Dobrin
• There is virtue in country houses, in gardens and orchards, in fields, streams and groves, in rustic recreations and plain manners, that neither cities nor universities enjoy. -Amos Bronson Alcott
• For most men, and most circumstances, please--tangible material prosperity in this world--is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to ascetism. -Samuel Butler
• Ethical living is the indispensable condition of all that is most worthwhile in the world. -Ernest Caldecott
• When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily their victims or their disciples; on the contrary, when we associate with the virtuous we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or at least lose, every day, something of our faults. -Agapet
• The door to virtue is heavy and hard to push. -Chinese Proverb
• The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious. -Cicero
• He that has energy enough to root out a vice, should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place, otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat. -Charles Caleb Colton
• Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than straightforward and simple integrity in another. -Charles Caleb Colton
• Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. ~Horace Mann, "Thoughts for a Young Man," 1859
• We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice. ~Henry David Thoreau
• Blushing is the color of virtue. ~Diogenes
• Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm. ~Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew, 1762
• Virtue is insufficient temptation. ~George Bernard Shaw
• Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. ~Henry David Thoreau
• He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place. ~Charles Caleb Colton
• Modesty and unselfishness - these are virtues which men praise - and pass by. ~André Maurois, Ariel, 1924
• Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
• Virtue is its own revenge. ~E.Y. Harburn
• All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance. ~Theodore M. Hesburgh
• The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues. You can't separate them. They're wedded. ~Henry Miller
• Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company. ~François de la Rochefoucauld
• A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined. ~Anne Petry
• What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. ~Voltaire
• Sin is commitable in thought, word or deed; so is virtue. ~Martin H. Fischer
• To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
• Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us. ~Robert S. Lynd
• The excess of virtue is a vice. ~Greek Proverb
• Unless I accept my faults I will most certainly doubt my virtues. ~Hugh Prather
• They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny a sun because it is not always day. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
• Water which is too pure has no fish. ~Ts'ai Ken T'an
• On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. ~George Orwell
• It is hardly respectable to be good nowadays. ~Edith Sitwell
• Some folks wear their halos much too tight. ~Author Unknown
• What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. ~Christopher Fry
• We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them. ~La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665

Anxiety Quotes

"When a man won't listen to his conscience, it's usually because the
doesn't want advice from a total stranger." - Lindsey Stewart

"Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action." - Walter Anderson

“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” - Arthur Somers Roche

"Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love." - Sigmund Freud

Reflection Quotes

Follow effective action with quiet reflection.  From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. -Peter F. Drucker

When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal.  When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine yourself. -Confucius
O, happy the soul that saw its own faults. -Mevlana Rumi
People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another. -Mevlana Rumi
Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. -James Allen
Retire into yourself as much as possible.  Associate with people who are likely to improve you.  Welcome those whom you are capable of improving.  The process is a mutual one.  People learn as they teach. -Seneca
People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. -St. Augustine
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -Leo Tolstoy
Know thyself. -Socrates
Most people’s lives are a direct relfection of their peer groups. -Anthony Robbins
Whatever results you’re getting, be they rich or poor, good or bad, positive or negative, always remember that your outer world is simply a reflection of your inner world.  If things aren’t going well in your outer life, it’s because things aren’t going well in your inner life.  It’s that simple. -T. Harv Eker
When you do the work, you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are.  Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the projector of all stories, and the world is the projected image of your thoughts. -Byron Katie
The unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates
The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. -William M. Thackeray
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. -Thomas Paine
The Law of Attraction attracts to you everything you need, according to the nature of your thought life.  Your environment and financial condition are the perfect reflection of your habitual thinking.  Thought rules the world. -Joseph Edward Murphy
Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away. -Barbara De Angelis
The object of reflection is invariably the discovery of something satisfying to the mind which was not there at the beginning of the search. -Ernest Dimnet

What Is Religion?

Religion is being honest seven days in the week,
Expressed in thought and action, and in the words you speak.

It is loving God and neighbor, and serving them each day;
It’s in the way and manner, and not in the times you pray.
It is treating others squarely, and living the Golden Rule,
Learning all the lessons given in life’s great school.

-unknown

Inspiration Thoughts

 "Inspiration and genius--one and the same." 
- Victor Hugo

Success Thoughts

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value."
 - Albert Einstein

Inspirational Thoughts

“God many times answers our prayers not by bringing down his will to ours, but by lifting us up to himself. We grow strong, so as we need no longer cry for relief. We can bear the heavy load without asking to have it lightened. We can keep the sorrow now and endure it. We can go on in quiet peace without the new blessing which we thought necessary. We have not been saved from the battle we shrank so from entering but we have sought and have gained the victory. Is not victoriousness in conflict better than being freed from the struggle? Is not peace in the midst of the storm and the strife better than to be lifted altogether over the strife?”

-Dr. J. R. Miller

To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says:
"Leave no stone unturned."
 - Edward Bulwer Lytton

"If you would create something, you must be something. "

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

"Every artist was first an amateur."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be."
Horace Bushnell

"Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself."
W. C. Doane

"Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action."
Benjamin Disraeli


"Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?"
George Eliot 

"No great man ever complains of want of opportunities."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Men do less than they ought, unless they do all they can."
Thomas Carlyle

"Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."
Leon J. Suenes

"The power of imagination makes us infinite."
John Muir

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
Epictetus 

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
Author Unknown 

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something."
Ornette Coleman

"Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true."
Richard Bach