In Praise of Virtue

All spiritual paths regard virtue highly, so I thought to start this thread and encourage others to add quotations, with the source, if known.

Here is St. Maximos (d.662) from his Four Hundred Texts on Love:

11. All the virtues co-operate with the intellect to produce this intense longing for God, pure prayer above all. For by soaring towards God through this prayer the intellect rises above the realm of created beings.

13. The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.

14. A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified.

15. If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.

16. He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep My commandments (cf. John 14: 15, 23); and ‘ this is My commandment, that you love one another’ (John 15: 12). Thus he who does not love his neighbor fails to keep the commandment, and so cannot love the Lord.

17. Blessed is he who can love all men equally.

Now from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text of the Hindus. Here is Lord Krishna teaching his disciple Arjuna about the divine virtues - from chapter 16:

The Blessed Lord said:

(1) Fearlessness, purity of heart, perseverance in acquiring wisdom and in practicing yoga, charity, subjugation of the senses, performance of holy rites, study of the scriptures, self-discipline, straightforwardness;

(2) Noninjury, truthfulness, freedom from wrath, renunciation, peacefulness,
nonslanderousness, compassion for all creatures, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, lack of restlessness;

(3) Radiance of character, forgiveness, patience, cleanness, freedom from hate, absence of conceit—these qualities are the wealth of a divinely inclined person.

Buddha - from his Dhammapada:

54. Not the sweet smell of flowers, not even the fragrance of sandal, tagara, or jasmine blows against the wind. But the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind. Truly the virtuous man pervades all directions with the fragrance of his virtue.

55. Of all the fragrances—sandal, tagara, blue lotus and jasmine—the fragrance of virtue is the sweetest.

56. Faint is the fragrance of tagara and sandal, but excellent is the fragrance of the virtuous, wafting even amongst the gods.

57. Mara [the demon] never finds the path of the truly virtuous, who abide in heedfulness and are freed by perfect knowledge.

From the Chinese Book of Odes, #235:

Don't you mind your ancestors!
Cultivate your virtue.
Always strive to be in harmony with Heaven's Mandate.
Seek for yourselves the many blessings.

Hierocles (ca. 430) begins his Proem to his commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras:

Philosophy is a purification and perfection of human life: a purification from our irrational, material nature and the mortal form of the body, a perfection by the recovery of our proper happiness, leading to divine likeness. Virtue and truth are most naturally suited to accomplish these ends; the former banishes the immoderation of the passions, the latter gains the divine form for those by nature well capable [of receiving it].

Human nature is disposed to do good, just as water flows downwards. There is no man that does not show this tendency to goodness.

Mencius, (4th century BCE)

Whatever is right springs from one of four sources. It consists either in the perception and skilful treatment of the truth; or in maintaining good fellowship with men, giving to every one his due, and keeping faith in contracts and promises; or in the greatness and strength of a lofty and unconquered mind; or in the order and measure that constitute moderation and temperance.

Cicero (d. 43 BC)

A man should be of good cheer about his soul…if he has earnestly pursued the pleasure of learning, and adorned his soul with the adornment of temperance, and justice, and courage, and freedom, and truth.

Plato, Phaedo

All the virtues and holy tempers of Christianity are not ours unless they be the virtues and tempers of our ordinary life. So that Christianity is so far from leaving us to live in the common ways of life, conforming to the folly of customs, and gratifying the passions and tempers which the spirit of the world delights in, it is so far from indulging us in any of these things, that all its virtues which it makes necessary to salvation are only so many ways of living above and contrary to the world, in all the common actions of our life. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians.

William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.

Samuel Johnson

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Cicero

Om.
May my limbs, speech, breath, eye, ear, strength and all senses become perfected. Everything is the Brahman proclaimed in the Upanishads. May I never deny Brahman. May Brahman never reject me. May there be no denial at all. May there be no denial at least from me. May I, who am devoted to the Atman, be endowed with all the virtues taught in the Upanishads.

Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

Rig-Veda

Desire is a craving in the heart for a certain object. The craving produces a stir in the heart, the stir arouses a tendency to seek for the object. The nobler the object, the purer the desire. , .

Desire is threefold :

(i) Desire for the world. It consists in the absorption of a man in the seeking of worldly objects. Such a desire is a downright danger. When it clouds the heart of a neophyte, it keeps him back from all virtues, and lures him to failure. A life spent in the gratification of such a desire deprives one of eternal happiness after resurrection.

Sharafuddin Maneri

The public or tribal position of the Indian is entirely dependent upon his private virtue, and he is never permitted to forget that he does not live to himself alone, but to his tribe and his clan. Thus habits of perfect self-control were early established.

Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman) The Soul of the Indian.