In Praise of Virtue

[Skull]

The diligent will take control, but the slothful will be put into slavery.

Proverbs 12:24

 

[Skull]

Those who are above should place their trust in and love those below them as they love themselves. They should enable the people to dwell in peace and find satisfaction in their work. If the people compete with and rob one another, it is not a sign of prosperity. In governing a nation, we must remember that from ancient times till now, whenever there was peace and order, whenever the dynasty’s rulers loved the people as they loved themselves, that period was certain to be prosperous. If people scheme and plot against each other, they gain things by unwholesome means. The Communist Party took over the country by force. Since they used crooked means, there is sure to be conflict in the Party later on. “A person must insult himself before other people will insult him. If you are not healthy, people will certainly insult you.” The best method is not to fight, not to be greedy, not to seek, not to be selfish, not be pursue personal advantage, and not to lie. However, stupid people dare not use it.

Master Hsuan Hua

 

[Skull]

The Good Religion is Innate Wisdom, reason; and the forms and virtues of Innate Wisdom…are begotten of the Good Mind and the Bounteous Spirit.

Denkart, 117 -- Ninth century encyclopedia of the Zoroastrian religion, but with extensive quotes from materials thousands of years older.

 

[Skull]

As God is simple goodness, inner knowledge and light, he is at the same time also our will, love, righteousness and truth, the innermost of all virtues.

Theologia Germanica, 31 (14th century)

 

[Skull]

I used to go to prayer only when facing difficulty. Now I go to prayer
before difficulty overtakes me, when possible. I now pray, not
for more of this world's goods and greater blessings, but to
be worthy of that which I already have. I find that this plan is
better than the old one.
Infinite Intelligence seems not at all offended when I give
thanks and show that I am grateful for the blessings which
have crowned my efforts. I was astounded, when I first tried
this plan of offering a prayer of thanks for what I already possessed,
to discover what a vast fortune I had owned without
being appreciative of it.

Napoleon Hill

 

[Skull]

If the churches should stop talking about me, my cause would receive a severe setback. Every attack made against me fixes the fear of me in the minds of all who are influenced by it.

The Devil, in Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill

 

[Skull]

A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

Grace Hopper

 

[Skull]

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

EDMUND BURKE

 

[Skull]

The manner in which one single ray of light, one single precious hint, will clarify and energize the whole mental life of him who receives it, is among the most wonderful and heavenly of intellectual phenomena.

Arnold Bennett (d. 1931)

 

[Skull]

I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your personal place; that makes you tolerant because you realize your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquillity without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself.

Sir Hugh Walpole (d. 1941)

 

[Skull]

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.
Aristotle

The more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself, the happier he will be. . . .
The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.
Arthur Schopenhauer

They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
Sir Philip Sidney

 

[Skull]

This way of life is best—to live and die practicing justice and all other virtues.

Plato, Gorgias

 

[Clyde 154]

Maybe we as a society should look at unethical or unscrupulous business practices for a start. We are complacent about how we let businesses get away with sneaky trickery, lying and insulting people's intelligence in everything from false claim advertising, bait and switch to outright bill padding or purposeful avoidance phone tag customer services. When we allow this behavior become normal business practice in our everyday dealings we then let
slack other portions of our life, from
relationships to social interactions and other areas where morality ethics and standards get thrown out the window.
Consumers demanding higher ethics will help permeate other aspects of our daily life as well that create more honesty and helpful nature.

I know........let's allow the GOVENMENT to regulate them. We all know how competent BIG BROTHER is in regulating and managing monetary accounts such as the IRS and the Social Security agencies. Its not like we the people have allowed insider trading REPRESENTATIVE MILLIONAIRES to make those rules and regulation to benefit.......who? Self or THE PEOPLE who sent them to DC for a lifetime?

The people of the republic of United States are getting exactly what they deserve........... a generation of victims, victims due to apathy. If this current administration is not a TEACHING MOMENT..........the people simply can't be taught.

 

[HaShev]

I know........let's allow the GOVENMENT to regulate them. We all know how competent BIG BROTHER is in regulating and managing monetary accounts such as the IRS and the Social Security agencies. Its not like we the people have allowed insider trading REPRESENTATIVE MILLIONAIRES to make those rules and regulation to benefit.......who? Self or THE PEOPLE who sent them to DC for a lifetime?

The people of the republic of United States are getting exactly what they deserve........... a generation of victims, victims due to apathy. If this current administration is not a TEACHING MOMENT..........the people simply can't be taught.

One good thing I heard is that they were gonna crack down on market makers or brokers intercepting and jumping on your stock orders causing people to pay more. But they don't understand it's not just that, but also it often causes a failure to grab your buy or sell order if you are good at finding the exact peek or bottom, so it makes you miss by a penny or two per share, which seems unimportant until you get priced out on the upside buying or downside selling.
The fact they don't understand the full cause and affect of these trade practices is why people have no faith in their resolving the problem.
Market makers used to rig penny stocks this way against the retail buyer, as well as make it impossible to trade doublex and tripple x long or short etf's, because everytime you sold or bought at the bid or ask they'd pull it away and make you chase it instead of filling the order. They'd even go as far as failing to fill your order that they claimed was processing, if they can grab it and it's quick known changed price's profit in hopes you don't see the order take. True story, I argued over this kind of abuse by threatening criminal charges (I'm a consumer advocate), and the next day my phone was unbootable- toast- dead as a door nail wiping out any evidence they thought I might have. If it wasn't a total coincidence that was someone cleaning up their tracks or getting revenge or putting pressure through such a threatening act.

 

[Skull]

If one is to come through difficult experiences unembittered, unspoiled, still a real person, one needs deep resources. Not alone in such experiences as sorrow and failure does this need arise but in man's search for the indispensable spiritual requirements of a satisfying life—inner peace, for example, some serenity in the soul to come home to at night and go out from in the morning. But no one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it. Peace is a margin of power around our daily need. Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us.

Harry Emerson Fosdick (d. 1969)

 

[Skull]

The man whom destiny positions in an epoch without a foreseeable end, the character of which wounds the deepest fibers of his being, cannot heedlessly sacrifice his repugnance to his boldness, nor his intelligence to his vanity. The spectacular, empty gesture earns public applause, but the disdain of those governed by reflection. In the shadowlands of history, man ought to resign himself to patiently undermining human presumption.

Nicolas Gomez-Davila (d. 1994)

 

[Skull]

Just as it is the bounden moral and natural duty of a human being always and in every set of
circumstances impersonally and unselfishly to aid others for their good, equally so is it his moral
and natural duty to refrain at all times and in all circumstances from acting selfishly and for
personal gain upon the lives of others. The former case arises in motives which in their essence
are divine; the latter case arises in motives which in their essence we may qualify as being devilish or diabolic.

G. de Purucker (d.1942)

 

[Skull]

I, for one, know of no sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country.

Homer

 

[Skull]

Marcus Aurelius on bodily pain:

In every pain let this thought be present, that there is no dishonor in it, nor does it make the governing intelligence worse.
Indeed, in the case of most pains, let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting—if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination.
Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)—or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquillity, and not to think that pain is an evil.
It will suffice thee to remember as concerning pain; that the mind may by stopping all manner of commerce and sympathy with the body, still retain its own tranquillity.

From Light From Many Lamps, page 96

 

[Skull]

Whoever is brave is a man of great soul.
In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in doing good to their fellow men.

Cicero