Erich Maria Remarque Quotes

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality.

Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.

To be a virtuous person is to display, by acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.

Character: the grandest thing in the world.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle, it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.

Be faithful and true of word; let thy walk be plain and lowly: thou wilt get on, though in savage land. If thy words be not faithful and true, thy walk plain and lowly, wilt thou get on, though in thine own home? Standing, see these words ranged before thee; driving, see them written upon the yoke. Then thou wilt get on.

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

Today it would be progress if everyone would stop talking about values. Instead, let us talk, as the Founders did, about virtues.

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

Virtue is its own punishment.

Being in humaneness is good. If we select other goodness and thus are far apart from humaneness, how can we be the wise?

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.

The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

True education seeks to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men and women with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love.

We do not need more knowledge, we need more character!