Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Virtue alone has majesty in death.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

The just man walks in his integrity

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

We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.

Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.

There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

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.

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage.

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

When you're righteous, you don't have to tell people that you're righteous.

The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste.

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

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.

I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world.

I consider nothing low but ignorance, vice, and meanness, characteristics generally found where the animal propensities predominate over the higher sentiments.