In Praise of Virtue

Started by Skull, September 03, 2020, 09:06:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Skull

A perennial need of mankind is avoiding vice and embracing virtue.  This thread is open for short quotes & comments on the subject.

QuoteWhatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric.

George Washington - Farewell Address
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteAre there men and women in America today possessed of virtue sufficient to withstand and repel the forces of disorder? Or have we, as a people, grown too fond of creature-comforts and a fancied security to venture our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in any cause at all? "The superior man thinks always of virtue," Confucius told his disciples; "the common man thinks of comfort." Such considerations in recent years have raised up again that old word "virtue," which in the first half of this century had sunk almost out of sight.

In this essay I shall venture first to offer you a renewed apprehension of what "virtue" means; and then to suggest how far it may be possible to restore an active virtue in our public and our private life. If we lack virtue, we will not long continue to enjoy comfort – not in an age when Giant Ideology and Giant Envy swagger balefully about the world.

The concept of virtue, like most other concepts that have endured and remain worthy of praise, has come down to us from the Greeks and the Hebrews. In its classical signification, "virtue" means the power of anything to accomplish its specific function; a property capable of producing certain effects; strength, force, potency. Thus one refers to the "deadly virtue" of the hemlock. Thus also the word "virtue" implies a mysterious energetic power, as in the Gospel According to Saint Mark: "Jesus, immediately knowing that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?" Was it, we may ask, that virtue of Jesus which scorched the Shroud of Turin?

Virtue, then, meant in the beginning some extraordinary power. The word was applied to the sort of person we might now call "the charismatic leader." By extension, "virtue" came to imply the qualities of full humanity: strength, courage, capacity, worth, manliness, moral excellence. And presently "virtue" came to signify, as well, moral goodness: the practice of moral duties and the conformity of lie to the moral law; uprightness; rectitude.

From the essay by Russell Kirk, Virtue: Can It be Taught?

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/02/russell-kirk-virtue-can-it-be-taught.html
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteThe idea of the good is the greatest discipline.

Plato, The Republic
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteAll great men and sages attained success through their self-effort. Reliance on destiny or God is an
expression of ignorance and this is the main cause of failure.

Self-effort must be sustained from a very early age in order that it may be powerful. But self-effort
devoid of wisdom leads to negative developments. A self-effort that has been adopted in a sporadic
manner will be unable to gather enough strength to overthrow past karmas.

The lazy man is worse than a donkey. One should never yield to laziness but strive to attain liberation,
seeing that life is ebbing away every moment. Every day one must think of the impermanent body and
struggle to conquer the animal nature. He must take recourse to association with good and virtuous
people. One should not revel in the filth known as sense-pleasures, even as a worm revels in pus. By
good deeds, good will return to you; by bad deeds, bad will return. Nowhere is there any God, fortune
or fate. One who ignores his present ability for self-effort for fear of his past bad actions, might as well
fear his own two arms, thinking them dangling vipers.

Yoga Vasistha II 5 - an ancient Hindu scripture.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Solar

Why is this in the Library? It belongs in religion.
Official Trump Cult Member

#WWG1WGA

Q PATRIOT!!!

Skull

Just a bunch of quotes from books - why not Library?  Would be useful if Library post boundaries are given.  Did not know certain topics are forbidden here.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Solar

Quote from: Skull on September 09, 2020, 02:42:56 PM
Just a bunch of quotes from books - why not Library?  Would be useful if Library post boundaries are given.  Did not know certain topics are forbidden here.
The library is mostly reserved for historical issues, things we, as a forum want to retain.
Official Trump Cult Member

#WWG1WGA

Q PATRIOT!!!

Skull

QuoteWhen a noble disciple contemplates upon the Enlightened
One, at that time his mind is not enwrapped in lust, nor in
hatred, nor in delusion. At such a time his mind is rightly
directed towards the Perfect One (Tathāgata). And with a
rightly directed mind the noble disciple gains enthusiasm
for the goal, enthusiasm for the Dhamma, gains the delight
derived from the Dhamma. In him thus delighted, joy arises;
to one who is joyful, body and mind become calm; calmed in
body and mind, he feels at ease; and if at ease, the mind fi nds
concentration. Such a one is called a noble disciple who among
humanity gone wrong, has attained to what is right; who
among a humanity beset by troubles, dwells free of troubles.

Buddha in AN 6:10 - Dhamma is truth as known by Buddha.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteOf all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C. S. Lewis
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

In chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita a sacred text among Hindus, there is a list of godly virtues needed.  Here is Swami Yogananda commenting on Fearlessness:

Quote1. Fearlessness (abhayam) is mentioned first because it is the impregnable rock on which the house of spiritual life must be erected. Fearlessness means faith in God: faith in His protection, His justice, His wisdom, His mercy, His love, His omnipresence.

The spiritually intrepid devotee is mightily armed against any foe that obstructs advancement. Disbelief and doubt, delusion's first line of attack, are summarily routed by undaunted faith, as are desires and all of their enticements that bluff with threats of unhappiness if not embraced.

Fear robs man of the indomitability of his soul. Disrupting Nature's harmonious workings emanating from the source of divine power within, fear causes physical, mental, and spiritual disturbances. Extreme fright can even stop the heart and bring sudden death. Long-continued anxieties give rise to psychological complexes and chronic nervousness.

Fear ties the mind and heart (feeling) to the external man, causing the consciousness to be identified with mental or physical nervousness, thus keeping the soul concentrated on the ego, the body, and the objects of fear. The devotee should discard all misgivings, realizing them to be stumbling blocks that hinder his concentration on the imperturbable peace of the soul.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteTo see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

Seneca.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

The Blessed Lord said:

1 Fearlessness, purity of heart, perseverance in acquiring wisdom and in practicing yoga, charity, subjugation of the senses, performance of holy rites, study of the scriptures, self-discipline, straightforwardness;
2 Noninjury, truthfulness, freedom from wrath, renunciation, peacefulness, nonslanderousness, compassion for all creatures, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, lack of restlessness;
3 Radiance of character, forgiveness, patience, cleanness, freedom from hate, absence of conceit—these qualities are the wealth of a divinely inclined person.

Excerpt From: Paramahansa Yogananda. The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 16.
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

 
QuoteWe will begin from those things which for our instruction are primary. These are perspicuous and evident to all, and though they do not apprehend the power and essence of virtue, yet according to common conceptions about virtue they awaken our desire for good through certain aphorisms, familiar to many, expressed in accordance with the visible images of real beings. These are thus set forth:

(1) As we live through the soul, it must be said that by the virtue of this we live well; just as, since we see through the eyes, it is by the virtue of these that we see well.
(2) It must not be thought that gold can be injured by rust, or virtue tainted by baseness.
(3) We should betake ourselves to virtue as to an inviolable temple, in order that we may not be exposed to any ignoble insolence of the irrational element of the soul.
(4) We should confide in virtue as in a chaste wife, but trust fortune as we would a fickle mistress.
(5) It is better that virtue should be received with poverty, than wealth with vice; and frugality with health, than abundance with disease.
(6) As much food is injurious to the body, so is much wealth pernicious to the soul evilly inclined or disposed.
(7) It is equally dangerous to give a sword to a madman, and power to a depraved man.
(8) Just as it is better for a purulent part of the body to be burned than to remain diseased, so it is also better for a depraved man to die than to live.
(9) The theorems of philosophy are to be enjoyed as much as possible, as if they were ambrosia and nectar; for the pleasure arising from them is genuine, incorruptible and divine. Magnanimity they are also able to produce, and though they cannot make us eternal beings, yet they enable us to obtain a scientific knowledge of eternal natures.
(10) If vigour of the senses is desirable, much more should prudence be sought; for it is as it were the sensitive vigour of our practical intellect. And as by the former we are protected from deception in sensations, so through the latter we avoid false reasoning in practical affairs.
(11) We shall worship the deity rightly, if we render our intellect pure from all vice, as from a certain stain or disgrace.
(12) We should adorn a temple with gifts, but the soul with disciplines.
(13) As prior to the greater mysteries the lesser are delivered, so a disciplinary training must precede the study and acquisition of philosophy.
(14) The fruits of the earth are indeed annually imparted, but the fruits of philosophy at every part of the year.
(15) Just as land must be specially cultivated by him who wishes to obtain from it the best fruit, so the soul should be most carefully and attentively cultivated, in order that it may produce fruit worthy of its nature.

Iamblichus, Exhortation to Philosophy
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteIt is more important to want to do good than to know the truth.

Petrarch, "On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others"
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Skull

QuoteHe who in the present state
Vanquishes as much as possible
A corporeal life, through the exercise of
The cathartic virtues,
Passes in reality into
The fortunate islands of the soul,
And lives surrounded with
The bright splendours of truth
And wisdom proceeding from
The sun of good.   

Thomas Taylor, Essay on the Eleusian and Bacchic Mysteries
Be courageous; the race of man is divine.   Golden Verses of Pythagoras