Virtue and Vice

Works to read

• After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory by Alasdair MacIntyre, 1981
• The Science of Right by Immanuel Kant, 1797 · Great Books
• Charmides, Lysis and Laches by Plato, c. 390s BC · Great Books
• Meno by Plato, c. 385 BCE · Great Books
• Statesman by Plato, c. 360 BC · Great Books
• Laws by Plato, c. 348 BC · Great Books
• Areopagitica by John Milton, 1644 · Great Books
• On His Blindness (Sonnet XIX) by John Milton, written c. 1652-1655; published 1673 · Great Books
• The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu, 1748 · Great Books
• The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics by Immanuel Kant, 1797 · Great Books
• The Agricola and the Germania by Tacitus, 98 CE
• The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian, c. 140 CE

Passages

From the texts

• Virtue then is assumed to be that habit which is such, in relation to pleasures and pains, as to effect the best results, and Vice the contrary.

  — Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Verified quotations

• establish the reign of virtue

  — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Political Economy

• To make a virtue of necessity

  — Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

• no liberty without virtue, no virtue without citizens

  — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Political Economy

• as the result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty

  — Aristotle, Poetics

• When I ask you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them

  — Plato, Meno

• Virtue is the strength of the man's maxim in his obedience to duty

  — Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics

Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: virtue, virtues, vice, vices. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.