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.
********
·
G.R.Kaanwal
·
21
February 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment