My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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July 1, 2012
16 Comment

“Loving-Kindness Is the Better Part of Goodness.”

“Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness.  It lends grace to the sterner qualities of which this consists and makes it a little less difficult to practice those minor virtues of self-control and self-restraint, patience, discipline, and tolerance, which are the passive and not very exhilarating elements of goodness.  Goodness is the only value that seems in this world of appearances to have any claim to be an end in itself.  Virtue is its own reward.  I am ashamed to have reached so commonplace a conclusion…I have gone a long way round to discover what everyone knew already.”

– W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

For my part, I wouldn’t describe self-control, self-restraint, patience, discipline, and tolerance as “minor virtues.” They seem major to me. What do you think?

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  • Anne

    I see what you mean that they’re major virtues, but I see what Maugham meant, too. (Or I think I do). If self-control, etc, springs from loving kindness, it doesn’t feel like a big deal to the giver–nothing feels nearly as hard when you’re starting from love. But if those virtues come from an act of will, without being inspired by loving kindness, they can be accompanied by a fair amount of anger, and they can get flavored by it, even corrupted.

  • Lauriesays

    It seems like he was putting them in the context of loving-kindness here. This was a rather revolutionary thing for a person to say (especially a man) in his time and culture, I think. I need to roll this around in my brain some more, but I don’t get so much that the others were unimportant as much as bring kind and loving is underrated.

    But I haven’t had any coffee yet.

  • Peninith1

    Those ‘minor’ virtues would have been learned in the nursery by a man of Maugham’s generation and British culture. Self-regulation is again being recognized as an important capability that young children need to learn so that they can focus, learn, complete homework, and function capably in social situations. Americans have for thirty or forty years valued freedom of expression in young children so highly that those virtues of self-restraint and self discipline have not been passed along to many of us as part of our early education and training. Yes, loving kindness is absolutely the first priority, but those minor virtues are MAJOR factors in our ability to be mature, poised, self-disciplined, self-controlled people who can reach our goals, persist when times are tough, and place others above our need to express our own feelings and desires.

  • http://10stepstofindingyourhappyplace.blogspot.com/ Galen Pearl

    I had to laugh.  When my daughter Mia was in high school, these virtues were not commonly practiced.  I had many conversations with Mia about being kind and having integrity. One day, she started crying and complained, “Why do you have such high expectations for me?!”  I replied, “High?  These are just the bottom line expectations for being a decent human being.  We haven’t even gotten to the high ones yet!”  

    Now that I think of it, I’m not sure what expectations could be higher than those.

  • Nancy in N.C.

    They are passive virtues, for the most part, and often go unrecognized.  If I don’t blow up at my mother-in-law when she aggravates just me, probably no one would notice my self-restraint at all.  If, however, I get angry, then it is noted.  These virtues are kind of like housework…..you don’t get praised for exercising them, but if you don’t, that neglect to act is noticed.  Not very exciting, as he says, but so necessary to keep us grounded.

    • Peninith1

      Great point. You might call these the ‘invisible’ virtues . . . and these truly are their own reward.

  • Sylrayj

    It occurs to me that what everyone is talking about, with  self-control, self-restraint, patience, discipline, and tolerance being passive skills, that perhaps the definition is lacking.  They are wholly internal and don’t need another person or creature, and may be quite active and significant in context of the internal discussion.  Loving-kindness generally needs someone else upon whom to focus, and sometimes that can be difficult because we don’t have any opportunities to change that outer environment.

    • gretchenrubin

      Very interesting point! Though tolerance, patience, etc. do usually arise (or not) in the presence of others.

    • Maxi

       Oh No!

       Loving kindness towards ourselves is often the hardest skill of all to exercise! Who are we ever so hard on, demand as much of – and criticize so much when they fall short – as  ourselves.   I have come to see that I would never say things to someone else I care about as I say to myself when I screw up and I a working hard on being showing more loving kindness towards myself all the time.

  • http://twitter.com/eccle0412 Jackie Anderson

    the photo is so “unloving-lacking happiness” just saying. This si my first visit to the sight. Reading March currently. Thanks!
     

  • http://twitter.com/eccle0412 Jackie Anderson

    Major!

  • Ancie Francis

    I agree with u, Gretchen. I don’t count self-control, self-restraint, patience, discipline, and tolerance as “minor virtues.” Puleeeze! The mess this world is in would b so much lesser if everyone practised these virtues. If these r not major then… well, nothing is! 

  • Lesliejhon

    Self-control, self-restraint and discipline can all be exercised without love, as an end in themselves, so I could consider them “minor” in virtue. However, any of these exercised because of love, makes them much greater.

  • Monica

     I agree, those seem l like major virtues to me also.

  • Wrsteiners

    Loving -kindness is like spending out your virtues.

  • Leafsong Z

    This could be considered off-topic, but:
    I just love this YouTube video. It was played at my church and later that day I looked it up and saved the URL.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFNqYOgoUXE

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