“I believe Beauty is the condition of the perfect life, just as important as Virtue and Truth.”
Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language
"Credo"
Gérard de Nerval.
The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)
“I believe Beauty is the condition of the perfect life, just as important as Virtue and Truth.”
Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language
"Credo"
“For the fame of riches and beauty is fickle and frail, while virtue is eternally excellent.”
Nam divitiarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis est, virtus clara aeternaque habetur.
Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician
For the glory of wealth and beauty is fleeting and perishable; that of the mind is illustrious and immortal.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter I; Variant translation:
Frithjof Schuon book The Transfiguration of Man
[2005, The Transfiguration of Man, World Wisdom, 72, 978-0-94153219-8]
Spiritual life, Truth
“The chief good he has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life.”
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
Aristotle, 13.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics
“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch”
Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book
Stanza 4.
The Second Jungle Book (1895), If— (1896)
Context: If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
“To use Virtue is perfect blessedness.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
“It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.”
José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
“A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue.”
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) Congolese Prime Minister, cold war leader, executed
Congo, My Country
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
i.e., self-control or moderation.
Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. VIII
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic
in The Alchemist of Happiness