George Washington Quotes

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

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

Void of freedom, what would virtue be?

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.

...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.

Ethics without virtue is an illusion. What is the highest purpose of ethics? It is to make a person good, that is virtuous.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

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.

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

Whenever you put happiness before righteousness, you will be doomed to misery. That is the great message of the Bible from beginning to end. They alone are truly happy who are seeking to be righteous.

Morality can muddle mystical understanding and virtue is only necessary in so far as it favours success. All wisdom must be encompassed in order to achieve enlightenment.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.

Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

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