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Who said this? This is my paraphrase, not the actual quote I read some years ago.
A virtue practiced to the exclusion of all other virtues is evil
Thanks
posted by David Cho @ 2/14/2009
8 comments
8 Comments:
It's not exactly the same idea, but Aristotle may have said something like, "An excess of virtue is itself a vice."
It think it's the same idea. You might be right!
I said that once.
In "Orthodoxy," G.K. Chesterton says:
"The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that
are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful."
I read your post aloud, so I said it. Just now.
Glad to help.
OK, David Cho. Imagine that I am holding a pocket watch on a chain. I begin to swing the watch back and forth. Focus on the swinging watch. Follow it closely. You are beginning to get sleepy. Very sleepy.
You will begin to post again.
You will begin to post again.
You will begin to post again.
(Now we'll see if blogpnosis really works like they say it does.)
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
Samuel Johnson
I don't know if that's evil, but it ain't good.
Paul describes it in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13 (KJV):
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
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