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The ancient Romans used the Latin word virtus (derived from vir, their word for man) to refer to all of the "excellent qualities of men, including physical strength, valorous conduct, and moral rectitude". The French words vertu and virtu came from this Latin root. The word virtue "was borrowed into English in the 13th century". [1]
Although "virtus" and "virtue" are related concepts, virtus for the Roman did not necessarily emphasize the behavior that the associations of the present-day English term "virtue" suggest. Virtus was to be found in "outstanding deeds" (egregia facinora), and brave deeds were the accomplishments that brought gloria ("a reputation").
In the Italian language, the term virtù is historically related to the Greek concept of aretḗ, the Latin virtus, and medieval Catholic virtues, e.g. the seven virtues. Thus, Machiavelli's use of the term is linked to the concept of virtue ethics .
A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend one's will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy", [6] thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic ...
In Aristotle's work, phronesis is the intellectual virtue that helps turn one's moral instincts into practical action. [ 4 ] [ 10 ] He writes that moral virtues help any person to achieve the end, and that phronesis is what it takes to discover the means to gain that end. [ 4 ]
Related words include विनति (viniti), संनति (samniti, humility towards), and the concept amanitvam, listed as the first virtue in the Bhagavad Gita. [32] Amanitvam is a fusion word for "pridelessness" and the virtue of "humility". [33] Another related concept is namrata (नम्रता), which means modest and humble ...
Pietas erga parentes (" pietas toward one's parents") was one of the most important aspects of demonstrating virtue. Pius as a cognomen originated as way to mark a person as especially "pious" in this sense: announcing one's personal pietas through official nomenclature seems to have been an innovation of the late Republic, when Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius claimed it for his efforts to ...
The reader should keep in mind, incidentally, that the words "virtue" (te) and "gain" or "to get" (te) are homophones, and this fact is the basis of frequent puns and word plays — that is, the man of true Taoist virtue is one who, as we would say in English, has "got it." [21] Victor H. Mair differentiates Zhuangzi's contextual usages of de: