Virtue is a ray of the divine Beauty, in which we participate through our nature or through our will, with ease or with difficulty, but always by the grace of God.

Virtue has her heroes too
As well as Fame and Fortune.

Virtue was its own reward.

Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.

Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love! What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! When fortune smiles!

Frequently, beauty is playful like dancing sunlight, it cannot be predicted, and in the most unlikely scene or situation can suddenly emerge. This spontaneity and playfulness often subverts our self-importance and throws our plans and intentions into disarray. Without intending it, we find ourselves coming alive with a sense of celebration and delight. The pedestrian sequence of a working day breaks, a new door opens and the heart recognizes the silent majesty of the ordinary. The things we never notice, like health, friends and love, emerge from their subdued presence and stand out in their true radiance as gifts we could never have earned or achieved.

Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.

Virtue consists in allowing free passage, in the soul, to the Beauty of God.

The actions from which [virtue] was produced are also those in which it is exercised.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

pero, como la virtud dé alguna luz de sí, aunque sea por los inconvenientes y resquicios de la estrecheza, viene a ser estimada de los altos y nobles espíritus, y, por el consiguiente, favorecida.

Virtue is indeed its own noblest reward; yet the dead find it sweet, when the fame of their lives is remembered among the living and oblivion does not swallow up their praises.

The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, And though late, a sure reward succeeds.