Definitions: (1) possessing moral and ethical excellence; upright; righteous; (2) having good and great qualities; (3) chaste; pure; virginal; (4) aretaics <the science of virtue>
Derivation: Latin, “strength, valorous conduct, rectitude”
Note: vir is the Latin word for man
Synonym: South African, Ubuntu: a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity; “I am because we are.”
Saying: Evil must be left behind in this world, but virtue follows the soul to heaven. — Hindu
Quotes:
• Virtue is like a stone, best plain set. — Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher & statesman
• His father had … insisted that they [the virtues] were the most important things he could have, and implying with a sharp dismissive gesture of hand and arm that wealth, fame, and worldly possessions were worthless and demeaning. “Little men,” he once said, “spend their days in pursuit of such things. I know from experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered before them like glass. I’ve seen them die. They fall away as if they have been pushed, and the expressions on their faces are those of the most unbelieving surprise. Not so, the man who knows the virtues and lives by them. The world goes this way and that. Ideas are fashion or not, and those who should prevail are often defeated. But it doesn’t matter. The virtues remain uncorrupted and incorruptible. They are rewards in themselves, the bulwarks with which we can protect our vision of beauty, and the strengths by which we may stand, unperturbed, in the storm that comes when seeking God.” — Mark Helprin (1947-) Winter’s Tale {1983}
Symbols: 1) the Christian Theological Virtues {Faith, Hope, and Charity}; 2) the Greek Cardinal Virtues {Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance}