Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife.
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The Four Classical Virtues
It is part of the legacy of Western thought your teachers cheated you from learning in school when they were busy teaching you about recycling, or some other popular fad.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.
A virtuous life is simply impossible without the aid of prayer.
And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our [educational] situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that our civilization needs more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests [hearts] and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
Faith Purifies Reason
…faith purifies reason. As a theological virtue, faith liberates reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher.
The Value of Womanhood
To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.
Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also, the mind of man.