Why Study the Virtues?
All your thoughts, speech and actions (which greatly effect your circumstances) arise from the quality of your personality. Almost all personalities contain flaws and are "lobsided" to some degree. By lobsided I mean that some qualities are over extended whilst others are stunted resulting in vices such as greed, cowardice and dishonesty etc.It is a principle of life that the more we study a subject the greater our knowledge and control of it. Let us then study the root of character which is at the root of all the world's problems and solutions.
How to Study the Virtues
How many virtues are there? Do they form groups or a pattern? These are the questions that will help us to understand the virtues.To help answer these important questions my method is to first make a list of the virtues and vices. Next move the concepts around and try and group together pairs or sets that seem to go together. Helpful resources for this are a dictionary, a thesaurus and searching on the web for lists of virtues. Write your virtues and vices on individual cards so that you can move them around and explore the relationships with each other.
The Virtues and Vices: A clearer look at a symmetrical pattern.
This table is a level of Order above a simple list of virtues and vices. Try not to get cought up in the words but look deeper to the actual universal concepts that they represent.| Cowardice | Caution | Bravery | Recklessness |
| Weakness | Gentleness | Strength | Roughness |
| Flexibility | Steadfastness | Stubbornness | |
| Meanness | Prudence | Generosity | Extravagance |
| OverSecretiveness | Discretion | Openness | Big Mouth |
| Curiosity | Nosyness | ||
| Mistrust | Doubt | Trust | Gullibility |
| Inferiority | Humbleness | Majesty | Arrogance |
| Reverence | Audacity | Disrespect | |
| Patience | Spontaneity | Rashness | |
| Frivolity | Playfulness | Seriousness | |
| Obedience | Defiance | Disobedience | |
| Giving Leeway | Authority | ||
| Disloyalty | Impartiality | Loyalty | Favouritism |
| Knowing when to quit | Perseverance | ||
| Intolerance | Endurance | Putting up with too Much | |
| Spontaneity | Preparation | ||
| Incompleteness | Simplicity | Completeness | Over-Complexity |
| Worry | Concern | Contentment | Complacency |
You will notice that it is not a complete table and there are still gaps, but the interested reader will get the general idea. There are levels of order above this one. The greater the order the more use the diagram will be. The principles of constructing higher Order matrixes and how to use them may be found throughout this site. If you would like to contribute in any way or have any questions then please feel free to email me.