The Somewhat Odd Guide To The Four Virtues
The Virtues Courage Temperance Wisdom Justice Western Ideas of Virtue Eastern Ideas of Virtue Seven Deadly Vices Research Socrates Plato Aristotle Machiavelli Thoreau Theodore Roosevelt Webmaster Resources
“The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.” Niccolo Machiavelli
It’s war, a battle between virtue and vice. Well maybe war is a little too strong. O.K. it’s a titanic battle between good and evil. No, that’s not right either. This is difficult; this is confusing.
What is virtue and what is vice?
In the Greek virtue is more properly called ηθικη αρετη or "habitual excellence." Virtuous people practice these ideas at all times. What a huge and impossible task! How can we overcome the vices surrounding us? First, we must understand virtue and we must understand vice. Otherwise, we are doomed to a sorry state of confusion.
That is what this site is all abound. Destroying that cursed confusion by shedding light on the idea of virtue and the reality of vice. If you want to educate yourself or educate your children then this is a good starting place.
Plato was the first western thinker to identify a list of virtues and the four he identified in the Republic are:
Courage
Temperance
Wisdom
Justice
Classical Greek philosophers considered these the foremost virtues. Early Christian Church theologians adopted these virtues and referred to them as the “Four Cardinal Virtues.” Others have added to this list but in the end these are most important and if a person truly practice these four basic ideas they will achieve the requirements of any other list later thinkers developed.
Selected Great Thinker
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, which was center of his life, although he spent several years of his childhood in the neighboring towns. Thoreau studied at Concord Academy (1828-33), and at Harvard University, graduating in 1837. He was teacher in Canton, Massachusetts (1835-36) and at Center School (1837), resigning after two weeks. In 1835 he contracted tuberculosis and suffered from recurring bouts of it throughout his life.
From 1837 until 1838 Thoreau worked in his father's pencil factory, and again in 1844 and 1849 through 1850. With his brother John, Henry opened a school in Concord and taught there in 1838 until 1841, when his brother became fatally ill. From 1848 he was a regular lecturer at Concord Lyceum. He also worked as a land surveyor.
A decisive turning point in Thoreau's life came when he met Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord. He was a member of Emerson household from 1841 through 1843, earning his living as a handyman. In 1843 he was a tutor to William Emerson's sons in Staten Island, New York, and from 1847 until 1848 he again lived in Emerson's house.
In 1845 Thoreau built a home on the shores of Walden Point for twenty-eight dollars, and described his observations and speculations in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). The account was based on a trip he took with his brother in 1839. Thoreau's first book sold poorly, and he remarked, "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself." Thoreau's most famous essay, Civil Disobedience (1849), was the result of an overnight visit in 1846 to a jail, when he refused to pay his taxes in protest against the Mexican War and the extension of slavery. Later Thoreau lectured and wrote about the evils of slavery and helped fleeing slaves. In his famous statement, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," he crystallized his idea to be the one who has the courage to live, to stand against the trends.
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