VIRTUE VIRTUE
Probitas laudatur et alget.
Virtue is praised and freezes.
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.
Virtue is the only and true nobility.
Tanto major famse sitis est quam
Virtutis: quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam
Prsemia si tollas.
The thirst for fame is much greater than
that for virtue; for who would embrace
virtue itself if you take away its rewards?
Juvenal—Satires. X. 140.
i Semita certe
Tranquilly per virtutem patet unica vitse.
The only path to a tranquil life is through
virtue.
Juvenal—Satires. X. 363.
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame,
is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all
virtue.
Chas. Kingsley—Health and Education. The
Science of Health.
Our virtues are most frequently but vices
disguised.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. 179. (Ed.
1665) In 4th Ed. at head of Reflexions.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one,
and must ask of Knowledge to show her the
pathway that leads to her goal.
Horace Mann—A Few Thoughts for a Young
Man.
God sure esteems the growth and completing
of one virtuous person, more than the restraint
of ten vicious.
| author = Milton
| work = Areopagitica. A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk.
| author = Milton
| work = -Comus. L. 373.
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,
Surprised by Unjust force, but not inthralled;
Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.
| author = Milton
| work = Comus. L. 589.
u
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.
| author = Milton
| work = Comus. L. 1,022.
J'aime mieux un vice commode
Qu'une fatigante vertu.
I prefer an accommodating vice to an obstinate virtue.
Moliere—Amphitryon. I. 4.
La naissance n'est rien oil la vertu n'est pas.
Birth is nothing where virtue is not.
Molieke—Don Juan, IV. 6.
Ou la vertu va-t-elle se nicher?
Where does virtue go to lodge?
Exclamation of Moliebe.
I find that the best virtue I have has in it
some tincture of vice.
Montaigne—Essays. That we Taste Nothing
Pure.
Faut d'la Vertu, pas trop n'en faut,
L'exces en tout est un deiaut.
Some virtue is needed, but not too much.
Excess in anything is a defect.
Monvel. From a comic opera. Erreur d'un
Moment. Quoted by Desaugiers. See
Fournter—L'Esprit des Autres. Ch. XXXV.
Judice te mercede caret, per seque petenda est
Externis virtus incomitata bonis.
In your judgment virtue requires no reward,
and is to be sought for itself, unaccompanied
by external benefits.
Ovid—Epistoke ex Ponto. Bk. II. 3. 35.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Plautus)
Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.
Let them (the wicked) see the beauty of
virtue, and pine at having forsaken her.
Persius—Satires. III. 38.
For virtue only finds eternal Fame.
Petrarch—The Triumph of Fame. Pt. I. L.
183.
|
Virtus praemium est optimum.
Virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto.
Libertas, salus, vita, res, parentes,
Patria et prognati tutantur, servantur;
Virtus omnia in se habet; omnia assunt bona,
quern penes est virtus.
Virtue is the highest reward. Virtue truly
goes before all things. Liberty, safety, life,
property, parents, country and children are
protected and preserved. Virtue has all things
in herself; he who has virtue has all things
that are good attending him.
Plautus—Amphitruo. Act II. 2. 17.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Cicero, Claudianus, Diogenes,
Gay, Ovid, Silius)
Qui per virtutem peritat, non interit.
He who dies for virtue, does not perish.
Plautus—Captivi. III. 5. 32.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
'Tis just alike to virtue, and to mej
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same belov'd, contented thing.
| author = Pope
| work = Epilogue to Satires. Dialoguel. L. 137.
But sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed.
What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?
| author = Pope
| work = Essay on Man.
| place = Ep. IV. L. 149.
The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy,
Is virtue's prize.
| author = Pope
| work = Essay on Man.
| place = Ep. IV. L. 168.
Know then this truth (enough for man to know)
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
| author = Pope
| work = Essay on Man.
| place = Ep. IV. L. 309.
