Scott Alexander Quotes

Virtue, like art, constantly deals with what is hard to do, and the harder the task the better the success.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it.

Do not feel lonely on the road of righteousness Because of the fewness of the walkers on it.

Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage.

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing.

I don't ever try to sound like, 'it's a piece of cake. Be chaste 'til your married.' But you strive and battle. It's a battle.

Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

Character is that quality of mind which makes truth-telling instinctive rather than strange.

I really wanted to be nasty and mean and bad. It's so much easier than being the good girl.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Virtue must be valuable, if men and women of all degrees pretend to have it.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.

Evil is the moment when I lack the strength to be true to the Good that compels me.

Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.

There is good and there is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with the good.