“Curiosity can be called a virtue or a vice, depending on what kind of elementary ethics one reads; in our house at Brekkukot, curiosity was considered on a par with thievishness.”

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Halldór Laxness 216
Icelandic author 1902–1998

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Wikimedia CEO on facts, hoaxes and the promise of Wikipedians by Luke Ottenhof, Canada's National Observer https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/19/news/wikimedia-ceo-facts-wiki-hoaxes-and-promise-wikipedians, (19 March 2021)
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“What conservation education must build is an ethical underpinning for land economics and a universal curiosity to understand the land mechanism. Conservation may then follow.”

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“The doctrine of virtue and vice depends on that of the soul.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The doctrine of virtue and vice depends on that of the soul. When the irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces fight and desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the soul tripartite, composed of reason, fight, and desire. Virtue in the region of reason is wisdom, in the region of fight is courage, in the region of desire is temperance; the virtue of the whole soul is righteousness. It is for reason to judge what is right, for fight in obedience to reason to despise things that appear terrible, for desire to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with reason desirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid, another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed, these qualities should not be called virtues when they are devoid of reason and imperfect and found in irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite elements. In reason it is folly, in fight, cowardice, in desire, intemperance, in the whole soul, unrighteousness.
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