Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate ting, like pain or a particular smell.

Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered...it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.