Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

All the devils respect virtue.

Without Virtue there can be no liberty

Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .

Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.

Honesty is nothin' compared to decency.

Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.

People are either good or they're not. Religion doesn't make anybody good, I don't think.

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

Integrity delivers better lives.

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

Knowledge is but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent.

In the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character.

When you can't have anything else, you can have virtue.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

Observe this, that tho a woman swear, forswear, lie, dissemble, back-bite, be proud, vain, malicious, anything, if she secures the main chance, she's still virtuous; that's a maxim.

A clean and sensitive conscience, a steady and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as large, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.

Character is the most precious gift of education.

...righteousness [is] always more believable when combined with dreariness.

Integrity gains strength by use.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

. . . Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed . . . so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.