Charles II Quotes

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

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.

Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a long way in life, if founded on a just estimate of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he knows and feels to be right.

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

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

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.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Men of most renowned virtue have by transgressing most truly kept the law.

Few serve truth in truth because only few have the pure will to be just, and of those again very few have the strength to be just.

Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.

A good man with a good conscience doesn't walk so fast.

One of the standards on which your happiness is based, now and in your future, is moral purity.

Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

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

True freedom is where an individual's thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honor - no matter the personal price.

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.

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.

The greatest want of the world is the want of men - men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.

The just man walks in his integrity

Amongst all the accusations that have ever been made against me, no man ever before imputed to me a lack of candor or charged me with duplicity, and no man ever shall and escape my denunciation. When a man so accuses me, it matters not where I am or who he is, I will write "liar" across his forehead, so that in future years all men may know him and all honest men may shun him.

Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences.