virtue

98:2.6Xeno­phanes taught one God, but his de­ity con­cept was too pan­the­is­tic to be a per­sonal Fa­ther to mor­tal man. Anaxago­ras was a mech­a­nist ex­cept that he did rec­og­nize a First Cause, an Ini­tial Mind. Socrates and his suc­ces­sors, Plato and Aris­to­tle, taught that virtue is knowl­edge; good­ness, health of the soul; that it is bet­ter to suf­fer in­jus­tice than to be guilty of it, that it is wrong to re­turn evil for evil, and that the gods are wise and good. Their car­di­nal virtues were: wis­dom, cour­age, tem­per­ance, and jus­tice.

149:4.3On this same oc­ca­sion the Mas­ter talked to the group about the de­sir­abil­ity of pos­sess­ing well-bal­anced char­ac­ters. He rec­og­nized that it was nec­es­sary for most men to de­vote them­selves to the mas­tery of some vo­ca­tion, but he de­plored all ten­dency to­ward over­spe­cial­iza­tion, to­ward be­com­ing nar­row-minded and cir­cum­scribed in life’s ac­tiv­i­ties. He called at­ten­tion to the fact that any virtue, if car­ried to ex­tremes, may be­come a vice. Je­sus al­ways preached tem­per­ance and taught con­sis­tency—pro­por­tion­ate ad­just­ment of life prob­lems. He pointed out that over­much sym­pa­thy and pity may de­gen­er­ate into se­ri­ous emo­tional in­sta­bil­ity; that en­thu­si­asm may drive on into fa­nati­cism. He dis­cussed one of their for­mer as­so­ciates whose imag­i­na­tion had led him off into vi­sion­ary and im­prac­ti­cal un­der­tak­ings. At the same time he warned them against the dan­gers of the dull­ness of over­con­ser­va­tive medi­ocrity.

16:7.6Virtue is righ­teous­ness—con­for­mity with the cos­mos. To name virtues is not to de­fine them, but to live them is to know them. Virtue is not mere knowl­edge nor yet wis­dom but rather the re­al­ity of pro­gres­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in the at­tain­ment of as­cend­ing lev­els of cos­mic achieve­ment. In the day-by-day life of mor­tal man, virtue is re­al­ized by the con­sis­tent choos­ing of good rather than evil, and such choos­ing abil­ity is ev­i­dence of the pos­ses­sion of a moral na­ture.

16:7.7Man’s choos­ing be­tween good and evil is in­flu­enced, not only by the keen­ness of his moral na­ture, but also by such in­flu­ences as ig­no­rance, im­ma­tu­rity, and delu­sion. A sense of pro­por­tion is also con­cerned in the ex­er­cise of virtue be­cause evil may be per­pe­trated when the lesser is cho­sen in the place of the greater as a re­sult of dis­tor­tion or de­cep­tion. The art of rel­a­tive es­ti­ma­tion or com­par­a­tive mea­sure­ment en­ters into the prac­tice of the virtues of the moral realm.

21:3.14If ever the au­thor­ity or ad­min­is­tra­tion of a Cre­ator Son is chal­lenged, at­tacked, or jeop­ar­dized, he is eter­nally pledged to up­hold, pro­tect, de­fend, and if nec­es­sary re­trieve his per­sonal cre­ation. Such Sons can be trou­bled or ha­rassed only by the crea­tures of their own mak­ing or by higher be­ings of their own choos­ing. It might be in­ferred that “higher be­ings,” those of ori­gin on lev­els above a lo­cal uni­verse, would be un­likely to trou­ble a Cre­ator Son, and this is true. But they could if they chose to. Virtue is vo­li­tional with per­son­al­ity; righ­teous­ness is not au­to­matic in free­will crea­tures.

16:7.1In­tel­li­gence alone can­not ex­plain the moral na­ture. Moral­ity, virtue, is in­dige­nous to hu­man per­son­al­ity. Moral in­tu­ition, the re­al­iza­tion of duty, is a com­po­nent of hu­man mind en­dow­ment and is as­so­ci­ated with the other in­alien­ables of hu­man na­ture: sci­en­tific cu­rios­ity and spir­i­tual in­sight. Man’s men­tal­ity far tran­scends that of his an­i­mal cousins, but it is his moral and re­li­gious na­tures that es­pe­cially dis­tin­guish him from the an­i­mal world.

48:7.1917. Am­bi­tion is dan­ger­ous un­til it is fully so­cial­ized. You have not truly ac­quired any virtue un­til your acts make you wor­thy of it.

16:7.10Moral acts are those hu­man per­for­mances which are char­ac­ter­ized by the high­est in­tel­li­gence, di­rected by se­lec­tive dis­crim­i­na­tion in the choice of su­pe­rior ends as well as in the se­lec­tion of moral means to at­tain these ends. Such con­duct is vir­tu­ous. Su­preme virtue, then, is whole­heart­edly to choose to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.