Heroes in drama are people who try hard to reach a virtuous ideal. And whether they succeed or fail really doesn't matter - it's the trying that counts.
Aaron Sorkin
In our view, successful reform is not an event. It is a sustainable process that will build on its own successes - a virtuous cycle of change.
Abdullah II of Jordan
One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
Aldous Huxley
Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it's clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren't very virtuous.
Alex Tabarrok
Real self-esteem has to be earned. I also believe in virtuous circles, like, nothing is fun until you are good at it. It is great if you can instill in children the ability to not give up, to have a work ethic.
Amy Chua
All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.
Andrew Jackson
At Camfed, we have focused on transforming the vicious cycle of poverty in many rural African communities into a cycle of opportunity. Alumnae of Camfed's programs go on to become role models and mentors for future generations of young students. We call this the 'virtuous circle,' and we know this is a model that works.
Ann Cotton
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
Aristotle
We are carrying these images out into the world, and we can't control how people contextualize those images no matter how virtuous our aspirations and our intentions are.
Barry Jenkins
I thank God that I can say on my death bed that I am a virtuous woman.
Belle Boyd
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.
Benjamin Franklin
There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
You can be a virtuous person without faith in God.
Bill Bennett
By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.
Bill Gates
I love to feature children and young adults as real people - flawed, naive, virtuous, venal - but real. I think it adds nuance and depth to the stories that wouldn't exist without them.
C. J. Box
The miracle of the American experiment was not the result of a natural sequence of events. An exceptionally virtuous and educated cadre of statesmen broke away from the politics of millennia and created something new. Only by this political miracle do Americans enjoy our freedoms.
Chad Wolf
All the dark, malevolent Passions of the Soul are roused and exerted; its mild and amiable affections are suppressed; and with them, virtuous Principles are laid prostrate.
Charles Inglis
There is one group that is more consistently portrayed as ineffectual, as unvirtuous, as incompetent, as objects of fun, and that is white working class guys.
Charles Murray
I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.
Clive Owen
Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.
Confucius
The fitness of the pupil is shown in his love for the acquisition of knowledge, his willingness to receive instruction, his reverence for learned and virtuous men, his attendance upon the teacher, and his execution of orders.
I take it to be from the greatest extremes, both in virtue and in vice, that the uniformly virtuous and reformed in life can derive the greatest and most salutary truths and impressions.
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
A virtuous character is likened to an unblemished flower. Piety is a fadeless bud that half opens on earth and expands through eternity. Sweetness of temper is the odor of fresh blooms, and the amaranth flowers of pure affection open but to bloom forever.
We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.
Like the plague, opioids kill the young, the old, the healthy, the sick, the virtuous and the sinful.
Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman.
An unvirtuous citizenry tend to elect representatives who will pander to their covetous lustings.
Lula's political culture translated into a government project that sought to include the poor in the budget with minimal efforts in terms of structural transformation. The inclusion of the poor would trigger the economy, creating a virtuous cycle of mass consumption market, increased tax collection, more investments, and more benefits.
There is many a virtuous woman weary of her trade.
There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Let no man under value the price of a virtuous woman's counsel.
It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.
Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.
Be virtuous in thought and in deed. God has planted in you, for a purpose, a divine urge which may be easily subverted to evil and destructive ends.
I think prosperity is a virtuous thing, and we need more of it in Montana.
Only free people have an incentive to be virtuous. Only people who bear the consequences of their own acts will care about those consequences and try to learn from their mistakes.
There has never been any country at every moment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to be saved from itself.
I do not know if she was virtuous, but she was ugly, and with a woman that is half the battle.
I would inevitably get the girls who were interested in me because I was the guy from E.T. It was kind of tough. I can't deny ever capitalizing upon it but on the whole in my teens I was pretty virtuous.
The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste.
I focus on projects I am passionate about and only work with people I respect. Without these supportive teams, partners and clients, I could never work on so many things. I am fortunate that they see the value in the multiplicity of my work and how it all comes together in a kind of virtuous cycle.
All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.
I've never understood why some people think it's virtuous and essential to finish every book they start.
Shaming people into being virtuous doesn't change behaviour.
If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.
If children are expected to be honest, parents must be honest. If children are expected to be virtuous, parents must be virtuous. If you expect your children to be honorable, you must be honorable.