This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
F. H. Bradley, fully Frances Herbert "F.H." Bradley
The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.
Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Matter possesses gravity in virtue of its tendency towards a central point. It is essentially composite; consisting of parts that exclude each other. It seeks its Unity; and therefore exhibits itself as self-destructive, as verging towards its opposite ... Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as that which has its centre in itself. It has not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in and with itself. Matter has its essence out of itself; Spirit is self-contained existence.
In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane… It refers to the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit, [but] since what produces man’s well-being and refinement is knowledge and virtue, civilization ultimately means the progress of man’s knowledge and virtue.
Attainment | Civilization | Comfort | Cultivation | Knowledge | Life | Life | Means | Progress | Refinement | Virtue | Virtue |
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
Charity | Circumstances | Hope | Means | Power | Virtue | Virtue |
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
No one will deny that an interaction between mind and body takes place whenever we consciously perform a movement. We now make the additional affirmation that our will — the core of consciousness, wherein the self proclaims its being most emphatically — interacts with the body in a special way when it makes a decision and deliberately activates the body. In pre-quantum days, when philosophy was dominated by Laplacian determinism, in which a state classically defined without recourse to probabilities rigorously entailed all future states (of an isolated system), free will was a paradox and an illusion. That is to say, either it could not be explained, despite the immediate, empirically accurate evidence that affirmed it, or its affirmation was false. This situation has changed by virtue of the discovery of quantum mechanics. The new discipline provides. the possibility of a solution by removing the impediment of old-style determinism.
Body | Decision | Discipline | Discovery | Evidence | Free will | Future | Mind | Paradox | Philosophy | Self | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Discovery |
According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication.
Jacob Bohme, or Jacob Behmen or Jakob Böhme
Love, being the highest principle, is the virtue of all virtues, from when they flow forth. Love, being the greatest majesty, is the power of all powers, from whence they severally operate.
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Spirituality is not a question of morality, it is a question of vision. Spirituality is not the practising of virtues -- because if you practise a virtue it is no longer a virtue. A practised virtue is a dead thing, a dead weight. Virtue is virtue only when it is spontaneous; virtue is virtue only when it is natural, unpractised -- when it comes out of your vision, out of your awareness, out of your understanding.
Question | Spirituality | Virtue | Virtue |
It is by union with his will that one enjoys and possesses God,and it is an illusion to seek for that enjoyment by any other means. The will of God is the universal means. This means does not belong to this or that method, but it has the virtue of sanctifying all methods and special calls.
Enjoyment | God | Illusion | Means | Virtue | Virtue | Will | God |
Order is virtue. And order isn’t a thing to be cultivated; you can’t say I will be orderly, I will do this and I won’t do that - then you are merely disciplining yourself, becoming more and more rigid, mechanical. Such a mind is totally incapable of coming upon this beauty that has no name, no expression. Order, like virtue, cannot be cultivated-if you cultivate humility you are obviously not humble; you can cultivate vanity, but to cultivate humility is not possible any more than to cultivate love. So order which is virtue cannot be practised. All that one can do is to see this total disorder within and outside oneself-see it! You can see this total disorder instantly and that is the only thing that matters-to see it instantly.
Beauty | Humility | Mind | Order | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Beauty |
Strict punctuality is perhaps the cheapest virtue which can give force to an otherwise utterly insignificant character.
Force | Punctuality | Virtue | Virtue |
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
If self-knowledge be a path to virtue, virtue is a much better one to self-knowledge. The more pure the soul becomes, it will, like certain precious stones that are sensible to the contact of poison, shrink from the fetid vapors of evil impressions.
Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue with bigots.
Indignation | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
Since truthfulness, as a conscious virtue and sacrifice, is the blossom, nay, the pollen, of the whole moral growth, it can only grow with its growth, and open when it has reached its height.