HKB
2 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: immortality of the soul · will, choice, and freedom · supreme good · self-mastery · reason and the intellect · justice as a virtue · instability of fortune · good will · fate, destiny, and necessity · duty, conscience, and obligation · duty
Usually: argument (2) · exhortation (2) · detachment (1) · reverence (1)
“Is there anything more precious to thee than thyself? Nothing, thou wilt say. If, then, thou art master of thyself, thou wilt possess that which thou wilt never be willing to lose, and which Fortune cannot take from thee.” Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy · insight
Kant begins the first section by asserting that only a good will is unconditionally good, explains why reason is suited to producing such goodness rather than happiness, and introduces duty as central to moral worth.
and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it. A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all t…
Fortune explains that true happiness depends on what cannot be taken—mastery of the self and reason—arguing that if fortune can be lost it cannot be the highest good.
How manifestly wretched, then, is the bliss of earthly fortune, which lasts not for ever with those whose temper is equable, and can give no perfect satisfaction to the anxious-minded! 'Why, then, ye children of mortality, seek ye from without that happiness whose seat is only within us? Error and ignorance bewilder you. I will show thee, in brief, the hinge on which perfect happiness turns. Is there anything more p…