Notes & Highlights for The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg

To do good deeds, to be gracious, meek and humble, to speak well, to wish others well, to have a pure heart, to be always ready to learn, to always tell the truth, to restrain your anger, to be patient and content with your lot, to be friendly, modest, respectful of the old, to honour your parents and your teachers – all this is to be the friend of

He chose virtue. “Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. Yet virtue—arete—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

Virtues, quite simply, are good moral habits. (Bad moral habits, as you might guess, are called “vices.”) Good moral habits are like internal dispositions to the good—they are character traits that become woven into who you are so that you are the kind of person who is inclined to be compassionate, forgiving, and so forth. Virtues thus are differen

the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness,

The way we learn right from wrong and live a good life, she writes, is not by memorizing rules, analyzing concepts or calculating outcomes — but by emulating those who we admire.