National Virtue Quotes

There is a measure needing courage to adopt and enforce it, which I believe to be of virtue sufficient to redeem the nation in this its darkest hour: one only; I know of no other to which we may rationally trust for relief from impending dangers without and within.

The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.

The U. S. is the main repository of decency on this earth.

The honor of a nation is its life.

The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable.

Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio - empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how - has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home - within the family, so to speak - our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.

We may look up to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any State should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored.

Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.

Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.

For all time to come, the freedom and purity of the press are the test of national virtue and independence. No writer for the press, however humble, is free from the burden of keeping his purpose high and his integrity white.

The greatest gift for an individual or a nation... was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.

We may wonder at the choice of Israel and Rome as the archetypes of the new nation, in view of the long history of suffering of the former and the decline of the latter. We may wonder that our ancestors over-looked the darker days of those earlier nations. They did not. They hoped to construct a republic on principles to sound that if we should decline in piety and public virtue we would meet the inexorable fate of nations, which are as but dust in the hands of God.

Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her.

Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human Nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?

A nation that is unfit to fight cannot, from experience, prove the virtue of not fighting.

Let the world see that this nation can bear prosperity; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to her bravest valor in time of war.