We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world.

The primary thing we need to learn is not just maths or spelling, but how to be good: we need to learn about courage, self-control, reasonableness, independence and calm.

Between recklessness and cowardice lies courage, for example; and the generous man is neither profligate nor cheap. Each virtue oversees an action or emotion for which it finds an intermediate path. The brave experience fear “at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right w