Charlaine Harris Quotes

Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them by a strict observance of decorum;at least they will lose something of their natural turpitude.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

You must do right before you feel good.

The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters.

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat; Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.

A big part of honesty is self-discipline, personal resolve, and taking pride in who you are as a person and what each action means to your character.

Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.

Always act as if you were seen.

He cannot be vertuous that is not rigorous.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

It is easy to be virtuous in prospective.

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Let us preach righteousness, and practice it. I do not wish to preach what I do not practice.

A person of “good character” was one who acted in accordance with the expectations of his community

Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.

To have done no man a wrong...to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude-this is to be a man.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

You weren't a decent man and you didn't do your best. We none of us were and none of us did.

I think that ethical behaviour is another feature of the kind of inner discipline that leads to a happier existence.

The Christian always swears a bloody oath that he will never do it again. The civilized man simply resolves to be a bit more careful next time.