🆅Week 2026-15: On Virtue

"Boasting of wealth and virtue brings your demise." (Lao Tzu, (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"Give up virtue, renounce wisdom;

people will benefit a thousand times.

Give up kindness, renounce morality,

people will embrace love and filial piety.

Give up cleverness, renounce greed,

bandits and thieves will vanish." (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"When the great Too is forgotten,
virtue and morality arise.
When knowledge and intelligence are born,
the great pretense begins.
When there is no harmony within the family,
filial piety and devotion arise.
When the country is confused and in chaos,
loyal officials appear." (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"The greatest virtue is to be prudent, and wisdom is to speak the truth and with understanding to act according to nature. (Heraclitus of Ephesus, "Fragments" [75.112], cca. 5th century)

"A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Pro Plancio" ["Defense of Plancius"], 54 BC) 

"Courage is the virtue which champions the cause of right." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "De officiis" ["On Duties"], cca.44 BC)

"He who understands virtue will have a sufficient amount, that is all. He will not allow sensual desires to be a burden to his mind, the small to injure the great, or the secondary to destroy the fundamental." (Chang Tsai, "Cheng-meng" ["Correcting Youthful Ignorance"], 1076)

"The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest." (Francóis de La Róchefoucald, "Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims", 1665)

"The strength and its functioning vary greatly according to the depth or shallowness of insight, and the corresponding freedom of action. It is for this reason that now as in the past students with the same insight and training differ as to strength and virtue." ((Torei Enji, "The Inexhaustible Lamp" ["Shumon Mujinto Ron"], cca. 1800)

"To secure our own happiness and causes of happiness, we must first act to create wholesome causes of happiness. We must create virtue. We must engage in good conduct. We must generate wholesome attitudes. These are important." (Gyalwa Karmapa, "A Talk on Being a Principled Person of Good Conduct", 2009)

"People control themselves with virtue. One must practice virtue to alleviate spiritual strains and remember peace of mind to appreciate the generosity of the gods." (Kazumi Tabata, "Mind Power: Secret Strategies for the Martial Arts", 2010)

"He who governs by way of virtue [/ excellence] can be compared to the [North] Pole Star, which keeps its place while all the other stars position themselves around it." (Confucius)