Robert Musil Quotes

Virtue, once bragged about, once you pride yourself upon it, ceases to be such.

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?

May your mind be thoroughly impressed with the absolute necessity of universal virtue and goodness, as the only sure road to happiness, and may you walk therein with undeviating steps.

Man is born for uprightness. If a man lose his uprightness and yet live, his escape from death is mere good fortune.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

Good character improves every aspect of a person’s life.

We manifest character when self-sacrifice for the sake of our principles becomes more important than compromise for the sake of popularity.

Honor modesty more than your life.

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.

Above all things endeavor to breed them up the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it which we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family. I had rather they we're homely than finely bred as to outward behavior; yet I love sweetness mixed with gravity, and cheerfulness tempered with sobriety.

There is no greater wealth than Virtue,And no greater loss than to forget it.

The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

It is easy to be virtuous in prospective.

To die for others is the highest purpose a person may achieve.

Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.

He who dies for virtue does not perish.

Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollity; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.

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

Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.