1a. My Virtuous Ethos

(Charactor, Spirit, Personality, Constitution, Composition, Temperment, Knowledge )

Link to My Mission Statement page

“Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

"Happiness is not pleasure, nor is it virtue. It is the exercise of virtue. Happiness cannot be achieved until the end of one's life. Hence it is a goal and not a temporary state."

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others."

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

"Moral virtue is the quality of acting in the best way in relation to pleasures and pains, and that vice is the opposite. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than he who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self"

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. All men by nature desire knowledge. Man is by nature a political animal. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth."

"If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us."

“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.”

― Aristotle

Ethos is an element of argument and persuasion through which a speaker establishes their credibility and knowledge, as well as their excellent moral character. Ethos can be applied to writing and public speaking, and all writers use ethos to a certain extent to establish authority on a given subject and to build trust with readers.

Unapologetically, I'm making a virtuous attempt at using the Golden Mean, in the example below (in a blue background box) as proof of my jovial rhetorical way of expressing repugnant contempt for certain unethical politicians like our former US president (Yes, I despise the hell out of POTUS45).

It should be abundantly clear that I'll never wish to be remembered for excessively expressing unjust toxic hatred toward anyone! To be clear, this is not the way of a virtuous Sage. My desired persona is to be known as a lover, not a hater. However, anger is an emotion that thrives in the tenement halls and subway walls of a failing oppressive totalitarian society.

Yes, I understand that many readers will label my poem below a caustic sarcasm, but it's actually my 'Comedic form of Eudaimonia'. I have done this poem below in what is known as a free-form (Free verse) style, joyously expressed (or perhaps it's a prayer):