Seek virtue rather than riches. You may be sure to acquire the first; but cannot promise for the latter. No one can rob you of the first without your consent; you may be deprived of the latter a hundred ways. – James Burgh, The Dignity of Human Nature: Book III. Of Virtue, 1754
They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny a sun because it is not always day. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers