Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
Context: Paganism we recognized as a veracious expression of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the Universe; veracious, true once, and still not without worth for us. But mark here the difference of Paganism and Christianism; one great difference. Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations of Nature; the destinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of things and men in this world; Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,—the chief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. The other was not for the sensuous nature, but for the moral. What a progress is here, if in that one respect only—!
No. 120 (18 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
“All too often men with physical courage are disappointing in their moral imagination.”
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)
“There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”
Cited in Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury: 1868-1880, Vol. 2. (1921), p. 205.
Sourced but undated
The Book of Ammon
Context: Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Therefore one with love, courage, and wisdom is one in a million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi.
“Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.”
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
