Marcus Tullius Cicero Virtue Quotations

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

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

Virtue is increased by the smile of approval; and the love of renown is the greatest incentive to honourable acts.

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.

Virtue is its own reward.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

It is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist.

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

Frugality includes all the other virtues.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

Saving the virtues includes all other advantages

There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue.

That which leads us to the performance of duty by offering pleasure as its reward, is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue. [Lat., Nam quae voluptate, quasi mercede aliqua, ad officium impellitur, ea non est virtus sed fallax imitatio simulatioque virtutis.]

The whole of virtue consists in its practice.

No one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue.

What fervent love of herself would Virtue excite if she could be seen!

The man who is always fortunate cannot easily have a great reverence for virtue.

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

Of all the rewards of virtue, . . . the most splendid is fame, for it is fame alone that can offer us the memory of posterity.

The whole glory of virtue resides in activity.

In the approach to virtue there are many steps.

Fewer possess virtue, than those who wish us to believe that they possess it.

The existence of virtue depends entirely upon its use.

Many wish not so much to be virtuous, as to seem to be.

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious.

Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.

It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves.