"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtues consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "The threat is too much. The... difficulty is too high. The challenge is too great." ~ Maya Angelo
The first time I read this, I thought it was EPIC. Then I read it again...
The second time, I felt something sink in me, like I had just discovered a vase that I thought was whole to be completely shattered when I turned and saw its broken back.
I think she is totally confusing courage with Hope. I thought Hope was that which gives us the ability to move forward. It gives us a good to strive for in the future whether that future is near or far. Courage is of a different flavor, right?
If Hope is as I've defined it, then isn't Hope contingent upon Love? Without Love, one cannot care about anything and will simply not move. When Love is lost, all is lost because despair has taken its place. Besides what happened to "And the greatest of these is love"?
The third time, I noted that this quote is really placing consistency over courage anyway. To meCourage is not the same as consistency . Courage is simply what allows you stay the course in an unusually difficult situation. It's the stuff of heroes. It is simply not of the consistency type. For the matters of consistency, we have the word fortitude.
So, nothing against Maya Angelou, but this quote is definitely not one of her best. Or at least I hope it isn't.
Chesterton is far more eloquent in matters such as these:
"To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless."
Of course, to understand what GKC is saying here you have to know that each apparent contradiction here is pointing to what society would define as "unlovable, unpardonable, unbelievable" not as something objectively "unlovable, unpardonable, unbelievable."
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I got stuck on the "greatest" part too - since Jesus Himself said that love was the greatest virtue. If there's anything I have to concede to Maya Angelou though, it's that at least for me personally, courage is maybe exactly what's lacking. Because for all my bravado, the thing that holds me back the most right now is *fear* - fear of losing something I've worked for, or of losing respect in the eyes of my peers. Perhaps if my love was perfect, my fear would be cast out... which tells me that this fear, in my case at least, is a perfect metric for the strength of my love.
I will have to check St. Thomas later (his feast just came up) to verify, but among the cardinal virtues there is prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude (or courage). Temperance perfects our desires for simply attained objects, Fortitude the difficult, Justice to give each his due, and Prudence to know how best to accomplish an end. The three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity are variously defined but generally Faith is assent of the intellect to what God proposes as true, Hope that God will provide what is necessary, and Charity (agape/love) that we love as God loves.
First and foremost, all of the cardinal virtues must be practiced for happiness to be possible. We should not intepret the author to mean otherwise since the general principle of interpretation is that we give the author the best possible reading.
Moreover, although Ed does not realize it because he is so young, there is the possibility that the author he quotes might have the benefit of life's experiences in discerning wisdom. Ultimately, I think the author has a very important point for modern life that courage is paramount. Moral courage in particular. Some rather prominent Catholic politicians started as good Catholics and became corrupted by lack of courage and greed for power. Many parents have good intentions towards their children but do not have the courage to resist the pull to be "liked" and instead want to be some sort of playmate for their children instead of leading them. Many workers and employers leave the teachings of the church in the church and shy from doing anything that "will get them in trouble". Spouses do not have the courage to bring up what bothers them in a serious way. It's been refreshing to see the Bishops of this country finally grow some backbone, something that has been definitely lacking. It goes on and on, really. In the melaise of relativism, why stand up for anything?
Hope is not necessarily contrary to courage, but is conceptionally different. It is difficult (pun intended) to have courage in the absence of hope (even the human kind), but some will do the difficult not because they see that their efforts will achieve something but because they fear the consequences of not doing what they must. It happens all the time. Continuing one's efforts in spite of fear is the very essence of courage.
Long and short, although I think it is possible to misread the author and give them a reading which allows for easy dismissal (for instance that courage is the mother of the virtues instead of prudence, or that courage is more important than faith, hope, or charity), that would deprive the reader of some very needed insight into modern life.
@王子 I agree, love and courage are connected. Moreover, one could say that all the virtues, by virtue of the fact that they are good, are all intertwined in a way that necessarily points us to God. Or so I think you were trying to point out.
@Father V Just for future reference, I prefer not to explicitly identify who I am here, but don't worry about changing anything here.
Secondly, I think what you generally described in your third paragraph was the reason that I thought the quote so epic initially. Then upon encountering it again was made to wonder. After all, yes, I can isolate the good in anything, but the stuff that makes a quote so quotable is its consistency to truth. There are most certainly, in my mind, far better quotes than this one that starts out by placing a supremacy on the wrong virtue, and then leads to define it multiple ways.
Thirdly, I like the summary of the cardinal and theological virtues, but I'd be careful to read anything spiritual out of Marie Angelou. It would be almost as extreme as taking a quote from Richard Dawkins and expecting it to pertain positively to the God that he holds doesn't exist.
Thanks as always, for your input. ^_^ I'm always learning something new.
hm, yeah, going back and reading my comment, my thoughts were pretty indiscernable! (Maybe I missed a Mt. Dew or something.) As a background to my original comment, let me point out that I didn't know there were any such things as cardinal virtues. Second, what I was trying to say is that even if love is the greatest of those cardinal virtues, fear may, in fact, be love's greatest enemy in my own life. That would make courage the most important virtue *for me to pursue*, even if it isn't the greatest virtue, period. lol, Just a self-observation, nothing more.
And yeah I guess I was also saying that even if courage isn't the greatest of the virtues per se, it must be up there because would be pretty hard to have love without it.
And I had a quick question too... um, who's Shirley?
Sorry, had to ;D
Yeah, Shirley, you remember her, right?
Seriously though, I couldn't off the top of my head explain to you why they are theological/cardinal virtues, but I would guess it has something to do with the first their relation to God, and second their importance over other virtues/gifts or fruits of the Holy Spirit. (another couple categories to expedite understanding)
Pride, Lust, Anger, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth. Those are the vices opposed to virtue. Looking at them though, I am confused as to where fear shows up. So, currently I am at a loss, but fear definitely is in opposition of Love, but I wonder if it is more of a symptom of a lack of another virtue or the presence of a certain vice. Over-analyzing this, I probably am.
Fear, for me anyway, definitely flows out of despair, so the awareness of my own hope is necessary for me to have courage.
So, I wonder if you have courage (fortitude) you already have love(agape)? or vice versa, or both? I don't know. I'll speculate more later.
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