-Temperance is power to say no, at will, to our laziness, passions, and appetites. It is the power, built through practice, to wait for rewards and to earn them.
-Self-controlled people do not turn wants into needs, and they know the difference.
-Temperance means sensible enjoyment. They enjoyment comes from other people, not just things. To the extent that they take pleasure in food, drink, entertainment, and work, it's because of the company, family and friends, with whom they share these things. They are affable, fun to be with, enjoyable to work with. Their greatest delight is to delight their friends.
-Temperance means mastery of one's speech and actions. Temperance people have class.
-The greatness of heart is the all-important spiritual power that gives force to all the other virtues. The ancient Romans called it magnanimity, greatness of soul.
-Heart is the capacity and desire to surpass ourselves, to endure or overcome anything for the sake of somebody else's welfare or happiness. It's generosity, the drive to give others the best of what we have for their sake, and expect little or nothing in return.
-Where does someone put his heart? What does he love most in life? What would he be willing to suffer for, even die for? Answer these questions and you put your finger on that person's values.
-To speak of people's values, is to speak of their priorities in life: what comes first to them, then, what comes second, third, and on down the line. Where, in what order, do people put their passions? What do they love most?
-People differ in their values because they differ in what they love most and least.
-We can tell people's values by which of these loves they hold closest, and which they belittle or ignore.
-Some parents give their hearts to God, family, friends, truth, and service-directed work. Everybody who knows these parents, including their children, considers them great people. Other parents, unfortunately, put power, career, and comfort ahead of anything else, and their families suffer, both now and later.
-In adolescence, teens are strongly tempted to put conformity and pleasure ahead of their family. But if mom and dad won their hearts in childhood, that is, if teenagers' love for family comes first, they can shunt these allurements aside. They love their parents deeply, and so will never betray them.
-Do your children know your priorities, the loves you hold above all others? Tell them. Urge them to follow you, to embrace your values as their own and live by them. And warn them about one of life's greatest disasters: to marry someone with mismatched priorities, whose values conflict with their own.
-A great person is one who never loses the heart he had as a child.
-What are the great loves of childhood?
1. Love for God.
2. Love for family.
3. Love for life, friends, laughter.
4. Love for those in need.
5. Love for the truth.
-Great people are those who possess within their souls the powers of adults and the hearts of children.
-Your job as a parent, your mission in life, is to raise your children to this ideal: to form generosity and character so deeply within them as to direct the course of their lives to greatness.
-The happiest people we meet in life are those who somehow enjoy what they have to do anyway, that is their duties.
-Tell someone he's brave, and you make him brave. Courage does not mean fearlessness. Means doing what is right despite our fears. Courageous people do not lose their fears, they just overcome them.
-We can change people's character but not their temperament.
-People who are most successful in business and professional life seem to have two personal traits:
1. The know how to concentrate and work hard at will, even when they don't feel like it.
2. They have excellent social skills: they are courteous, gracious, ethical, consistently good listeners, and explainers.
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