#virtue

If you really want to possess a woman, you must think like her, and the first thing to do is win over her soul. The rest, that sweet, soft wrapping that steals away your senses and your virtue, is a bonus. ↗

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#writing #virtue

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge. ↗

— Voltaire

#human #human spirit #ignorance #infantile #knowledge

Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#economy

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#double-standards #envy #hate #indignation #morality

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#dream #earth #future #heaven #hope

Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Notice the verse does not say the "fruits" of the Spirit, but fruit. The fruit, or result, of the Spirit working in our lives is that we become not just some but all of these things: more loving, more patient, more faithful, and so forth. This verse is not a to-do list for us to work through, but a description of the transformation that occurs when God's Spirit begins to work in us. ↗

— Keri Wyatt Kent

#christian #faith #holy-spirit #religion #virtues

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself. ↗

— Baruch Spinoza

#itself #reward #virtue

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue. ↗

— Baruch Spinoza

#endeavor #first #only #understand #virtue

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. ↗

— Baruch Spinoza

#based #character #peace #strength #virtue

True virtue is life under the direction of reason. ↗