If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.
When the sacredness of one's word is matched in the attributes of his character throughout, all that constitutes a man, then we find that there is something in a man's life greater than his occupation or his achievements; grander than acquisition or wealth; higher than genius; more enduring than fame.
The value of a man is in his intrinsic qualities: in that of which power cannot strip him and which adverse fortune cannot take away. That for which he is indebted to circumstances is mere trapping and tinsel.
No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.
Virtue is akin to holiness, an attribute of godliness.
A man has generally the good or ill qualities, which he attributes to mankind.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.
Character is greater than talent, genius, fame, money, friends - there is nothing to compare with it. A man may have all these and yet remain comparatively useless - be unhappy - and die a bankrupt in soul.
Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.
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