F.H. Peters

by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous.

For it is repeated acts of a particular kind that give a man a particular character.

But to seek death as a refuge from poverty, or love, or any painful thing, is not the act of a brave man, but of a coward. For it is effeminacy thus to fly from vexation; and in such a case death is accepted not because it is noble, but simply as an escape from evil.

Those, for instance, who are called by such names as niggardly, stingy, miserly, all fall short in giving, but do not covet other people’s goods, or wish to take them.