Virtues develop when we devote ourselves to good things for their own sake

It is not from what we undertake with a view to our transformation, but from the things to which we devote ourselves for their own sake, that will issue the deepest formative effect upon our habitual being. The transformation of our character under these influences is essentially, on our part, the reception of a gift rather than a purpose attained by our will. All true values to which we attend in a contemplative attitude, with which our souls become imbued, unfold such a transforming effect in the depths of our being. The vision of the beautiful, as Plato says (Phaedrus 249d), causes the soul "to grow wings."

Dietrich von Hildebrand