All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
- Aristotle


Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
- Thomas Jefferson


Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
- George Washington


Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.
- Confucius


He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
- Confucius


I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.
- Socrates


I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it.
- Confucius


Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.
- Confucius


It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
- Abraham Lincoln


It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
- Ben Franklin


The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.
- Confucius


The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.
- Confucius


The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
- Confucius


The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.
- Socrates


The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.
- Confucius


To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...[They are] gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.
- Confucius


To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
- Confucius


Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.
- Confucius


Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
- Confucius


When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.
- Confucius