Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources / Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them

by Rev. James Wood

Virtue is not a knowing, but a willing. Zachariä. 10

Virtue is safe only when it is inspired. C. H. Parkhurst.

Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things, and the nature of things makes it prevalent. It consists in a perpetual substitution of being for seeming, and with sublime propriety God is described as saying, I AM. Emerson.

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs. Marlowe.

Virtue is the health of the soul; it gives a flavour to the smallest leaves of life. Joubert.

Virtue is the queen of labourers. Pr. 15

Virtue itself offends when coupled with forbidding manners. Bp. Middleton.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, / And vice sometime's by action dignified. Rom. and Jul., ii. 3.

Virtue, like a plant, will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay, do but look at it privily thyself, the root withers, and no flower will glad thee. Carlyle.

Virtue, like a strong and hardy plant, will root when it can find an ingenuous nature and a mind not averse to labour. Plutarch.