💜 Petit traité des grandes vertus by André Comte-Sponville

It is better to teach virtues, said Spinoza, than to condemn vices. It is not about giving moral lessons, but about helping everyone to become their own master, as it should be, and their own judge. For what purpose? To be more human, stronger, gentler, freer. Virtues are our moral values, but embodied: always singular, like each of us, always plural, like the weaknesses they combat or correct. There is no Good in itself. Good does not exist; it is to be made, and that is what we call virtues. These are the ones I have taken as my subject here: from politeness to love, eighteen chapters on these virtues that we lack (but not entirely: how else could we think of them?), and which enlighten us.