CARDINAL VIRTUES AND DEADLY SINS

 

          CARDINAL VIRTUES AND DEADLY SINS

            Virtue is defined as uprightness, goodness, morality, chastity, rectitude, merit , efficacy, excellence , and integrity. A virtuous person is good, morally sound, righteous, honest, blameless, and exemplary.

             Religiously there are seven cardinal virtues. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude. temperance, faith, hope, and charity.              

            In another version, humility, charity, chastity, kindness, patience , temperance and diligence are seven heavenly virtues.

            According to a famous quote every virtue gives a man a degree of advantage in some kind; honesty gives a man a good report; justice, estimation; prudence, respect; courtesy and liberality, affection; temperance gives health; fortitude, a quiet mind, not to be moved by any adversity.

            The English divine Sydney Smith (1771-1845) said: Virtue is so delightful, whenever it is perceived that men have found it their interest to cultivate manners, which are, in fact, the appearances of certain virtues, and now we are come to love the sign better than the thing signified , and to prefer manners with virtue, to virtue without manners.

            The French mathematician and physicist Pascal  (1623-1662) insisted  that the virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his everyday conduct.

            The antonyms of cardinal  virtues are seven  deadly sins. They are: Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

            Pride stands for vanity and arrogance; greed for avarice and covetousness; lust for intense desire; envy for jealousy; gluttony for excessive consumption; wrath for anger and rage; and sloth for laziness and spiritual apathy.

            To conclude : The Roman poet Juvenal (Born 55 . in Aquino, Italy) believed that bad men hate sin through fear of punishment; good men hate sin through their love of virtue.

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·        G.R.Kaanwal

·        21 February 2026

 

A MISCELLANY OF THOUGHTS

 

A MISCELLANY OF THOUGHTS

1.     Miscellany here means a mixture of various thoughts on various subjects.

2.     In the end, thought rules the world. There may however be times when impulses and passions are more powerful.

3.     Thought means life, since those who do not think do not live in any high or real sense.

4.     Thought is deeper than speech; feeling deeper than thought.

5.     It is a miserable thing to live in suspense: it is the life of a spider.---Irish writer and essayist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).

6.     Sins are like circles in the water when a stone is thrown into it; one produces another.

7.     Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life.

8.     Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds.

9.      Books and proverbs receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.

10.                         The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.

11.                        Justice without power is inefficient; power without justice is tyranny.

12.                        Patience and time do more than strength or passion.

13.                        There is no virtue like necessity. ----English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

14.                        Modesty and humility are the sobriety of the mind.

15.                        To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.

16.                        Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.

17.                         Jealousy sees things always with magnifying glasses which make little things large, of dwarfs giants, of suspicions truth. ---(Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616)

18.                        Sorrow’s best antidote is employment.

19.                        Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

20.                        It is not so hard to earn money, as to spend it well.

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G.R.Kanwal

20 February 2026

 

SOME THOUGHTS ON DREAMS

 

                                SOME THOUGHTS ON DREAMS

            Dreams are defined as involuntary successions of images, emotions, and sensations which occur during sleep.

            They are also called nightmares, visions, fantasies, and hallucinations. They are also desires, expectations, wishes, longings, hopes, yearnings, reveries , castles in the air and states of unreality.

             It is not undesirable to dream.

            Dreamers are visionaries, idealists, theorizers, and romancers.

            What are dreams today can be realities tomorrow. They are fore-runners of future events. They please all sorts of thinkers because they fill their mind with hopes and inspire them to work for a better future.

            Day-dreamers are different from all-time dreamers. They indulge in idle, pleasant or absentminded fantasies. However, they are also described as creative.

            According to the American divine Frederick Henry Hedge (1805-90)  Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which, if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante (Italian poet and writer(1265-1321)or a Shakespeare (British poet-playwright 1564-1616).

            Shakespeare said: Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls.

In Act 2, Sc.2 of his play Hamlet he said : Dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. In another play, Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Sc.1. he said: If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, my dreams presage some joyful news at hand.

            To conclude, here are some famous quotes on dreams:

*Dare to dream big, then do something about it.

*At least once a day, allow yourself the freedom to dream.

*Don’t make your dreams smaller to fit into your current reality.

*Everything starts with a dream.

*Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

                                                *******      

G.R.Kanwal

19 February 2026

 

 

 

 

 

THE MODERN MAN

 

THE MODERN MAN

The modern man does not want to walk; he does not want to run. He wants to drive; he wants to fly.

He wants his country to have broadest and longest roads; fastest trains; biggest airports.

He does not want simple homes; his craving is now for the tallest buildings.

The offices in his country should be most beautiful and ultra modern.

He prefers machines to men even for household work.

He is making all possible efforts to depend upon artificial intelligence for all the mathematical, mechanical, logical, psychological, medical,  and other activities which form the curriculum  of his worldly life.

He now prefers deadliest weapons to peaceful negotiations for solving inter-national disputes.

Walk and water are no longer his choice for a healthy life.

            The English poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637) says in a poem titled The Perfect Life that perfection does not consist in bulk. The highest beauty in nature is not seen in the tall oak tree, standing for three hundred years, but in a lily which blooms and dies in a day.   

             The Indian colonial nationalist and political thinker Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi preached for non-violence as also for simple living and high thinking.

            Here is the full text of Ben Jonson’s poem The Perfect Life:

            “It is not growing like a tree

            In bulk, doth make Man better be;

            Or standing long an oak. Three hundred year,

            To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.

                                    A lily of a day

                                    Is fairer far in May,

            Although it fall and die that night---

            It was the plant and flower of Light.

            In small proportions we just beauties see;

            And in short measures life may perfect be. “          

                                       

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G.R.Kanwal

18 February 2026.

SOME SAYINGS OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD

 

 

 

          SOME SAYINGS OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD  

1.Actions will be judged according to intentions.

2. No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

3. He dies not who gives life to learning.

4. Those who earn an honest living are the beloved of God.

5.  Humility and courtesy are acts of piety.

6.  The Garden of Bliss is meant for those who have a true, pure and merciful heart.

7.  A true person is one who is true in word, in action , and in thought,

8.  Feed the hungry, help the afflicted, lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and remove the wrongs of the injured.

9.  Learn to know yourself.

10. Prayers lighten the heart.

11. Kill not your hearts with excess of eating and drinking.

12. Do not speak ill of the dead.

13. Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.

14. God’s kindness towards His creatures is more than a mother’s towards her babe.

15. Do a good deed after every bad deed so that it may blot out the latter.

16. Forgive your servants seventy times a day.

17. It is not worthy of a speaker of truth to curse people.

18. Avoid telling lies.

19. Say what is true, although it may be bitter and displeasing to listeners.

20. God is not merciful to him who is not so to mankind.

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G.R.Kanwal

17^th February 2026

 

UNFORGETTABLE LINES

 

                UNFORGETTABLE LINES           

Some written or spoken lines are unforgettable. They make our expression weighty and more meaningful. Here are some of them.

1. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
2. Love begets love.
3. Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
4. The early bird catches the worm.
5.  Practice makes perfect.
6. Actions speak louder than words.
7. Better late than never.
8.  Late is better than not at all.
9. Fall seven times, stand up eight. (Japanese Proverb).
10.  Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.
11.  A stitch in time saves nine.
12.  What you do is more important than what you say.
13.  Not gold,  but only men can make a people great and strong.
14.  In short proportions we just beauties see and in short measures life may perfect be.
15.  God doth need either man’s work or His own gifts: Who best bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best.
16.  They also serve who only stad and wait.
17.  Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign, beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes like this; the land our brothers walk upon is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.
18.  Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.(Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore in Gitanjali : Song Offerings).
19.  The superman believes nore readily in Destiny, feels more vitally conscious of God than the average human mind.(Sri Aurobindo – Indian Yogi 1872-1950).
20.  Learn to listen to your body. It has its own language.

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G. R. Kanwal

16 Feb 2026

 

 

 

 

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH

 

          ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH  

            ‘Youth’ is a nation’s strength and stamina. It is its physical and mental might to make all sorts of big achievements, discoveries and inventions, conquests and advancements. By contrast, middle-aged and old persons are not so capable. They cannot keep pace with them or surpass them in making bold and brave achievements.

            Given below is a poem titled ‘Aspirations Of Youth’.  It was written by James Montgomery, a Scottish-born hymn writer, poet and editor . His life period was (4 November 1771-30 April 1854). He eventually settled in Sheffield, United Kingdom.

            James Montgomery is better known for writing more than 400 hymns many of which are still sung.  Here is the full text of the aforesaid poem:

 “Higher, higher will we climb

Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country’s story;

Happy, when her welfare calls,

He who conquers, he who falls.

 

Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;

Nature’s wealth and Learning’s spoil

Win from school and college;

Delve we there for richer gems

Than the stars of diadems.

 

Onward, onward may we press

Through the path of duty;

Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty.

Minds are celestial birth,

Make we then a heaven of earth.

 

Closer, closer let us knit

Hearts and hands together,

Where ourfire-side- comforts sit

In the wildest weather;---

O, they wander wide who roam

For the joys of life from home?

                                                            *****

G. R. Kanwal

15^th March 2026