The Character of Virtue Quotes

“To treat everyone “the same,” for example, can result in deep injustice. Justice requires an ability to see differences for the difference they should make.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“Sentimentality is the greater enemy of the life of virtue just to the extent that sentimentality names the assumption that we can be kind without being truthful.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“America is Rome, by which I mean we are a country that is so powerful that we can do what we want to do to other people and not fear the consequences. Americans are extremely frightened to live in a world in which we are so powerful, which is why we’ll go to any length to make ourselves feel safe. So America has gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I fear your generation will harvest the result.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“That baseball is the great American sport indicates that there is hope even for America. Americans pride themselves on speed, but speed is often just another name for violence.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“For what is friendship but the discovery that I don’t want to tell my story—can’t tell my story—without your story?”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“Even when you’re critical of the use of American power, it’s still hard to learn to resist identifying with such a powerful country. One can’t help but be tempted to believe that the problem is not having so much power but the uses to which that power is put. You may find it almost impossible to resist the thought that your task is to make the power of America serve the good.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“When the trust that truth makes possible is lost, our lives cannot help but be captured by forms of violence—violence often disguised as order and, for that reason, not recognized for the lie that is at its heart. That’s why any peace that isn’t truthful is cursed.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“America is Rome, by which I mean we are a country that is so powerful that we can do what we want to do to other people and not fear the consequences.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“a humility that expresses a more fundamental insecurity isn’t humility.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“Simplicity is best understood as the virtue characteristic of those who don’t have to try to be what they are.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“Aristotle even suggests that those who go to excessive lengths trying to raise laughs are acting like “vulgar buffoon[s].”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“We often lie because as prideful beings we don’t want our limits exposed.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“The virtues are, so to speak, pulled out of us by our loves. That’s why it’s natural for us to be kind—because we were created to be so.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“Virtue names the ways good habits become inscribed on our character by steering between excess and defect.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson

“The book that Stanley and I wrote together was, in some ways, the culmination of his career, and in other ways the beginning of mine. In this book we brought colleagues together to articulate the nature of Christian life and to describe how that life was shaped and characterized by participating in the Eucharist. On the night before he died, Jesus faced the question of how his followers could both imitate his path and meanwhile stay together. His command was “Eat together.” In eating together they would discover what it would take to gather, to become one, to confess their failings, to be forgiven, to praise, to remember their story, to realize where God was at work among them, to declare their faith, to make intercession, to share peace and be reconciled with one another, to give thanks, to share, to ensure nothing is wasted, to be blessed and sent out in mission: in short, to be the church. In other words, worship is a training in virtue for head, hand, heart, and soul. If you want to discover how to be a godparent, let your imagination be shaped in virtue by worship.”
― Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson