What is virtue?
Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good.
– Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1833
It all starts with a thought.
Sow a thought and you reap an act.
Sow an act and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit and you reap a character.
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
– Charles Reade (1814-1884)
What is the goal of virtue?
The goal of the virtuous life is to become like God.
– St. Gregory of Nyssa
How do I acquire virtue?
Human virtues acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace.
– CCC 1810
The power of habit.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
– Aristotle
What should I think about?
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
– Philippians 4:8
Seven things to strive for.
Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
– 2 Peter 1:5-7
Virtues govern, order, and guide.
Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith.
– CCC 1804
The power of repetition
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit.
– Aristotle
Advice from an Emperor
Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice…kind affectionate, strenuous in all right acts.
– Marcus Aurelius
How does character come?
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
– Romans 5: 3-5
What are the Big Four?
Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called “cardinal”, all the others are grouped around them. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
– CCC 1805
Topic: Prudence
The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going.
– Proverbs 14:15
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
– Socrates
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
– Henry Ford
Topic: Level 4
Nothing can happen to me that God doesn’t want. And all that He wants, no matter how bad it may appear to us, is really for the best.
– St. Thomas Moore, letter from prison to daughter
Whatever you make of your life make it something that reflects the love of Christ.
– Pius XI
Faith, if it is strong, protects the whole house.
– St. Ambrose
Topic: Self-denial
Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere.
– Henry Ward Beecher
There never did and never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in a character which was a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.
– Sir Walter Scott
Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites.
– Sirach 18:30