Given below are three quotations of great moral thinkers/philosophers. For each of these quotations, bring…

Question

Given below are three quotations of great moral thinkers/philosophers. For each of these quotations, bring out what it means to you in the present context:

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies." —Aristotle

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

The quote means that mastering one's own greed, anger and impulses is a harder and nobler courage than defeating an outside enemy. Ashoka's turn from conquest to Dhamma-vijaya after Kalinga, and the inner restraint an officer shows when unobserved, prove the point.

**Introduction**

Ashoka, after Kalinga, gave up conquest by the sword for Dhamma-vijaya, conquest by righteousness. Aristotle's line makes the same turn: defeating desire within needs a rarer courage than defeating an enemy outside.

**What the Quote Means to Me**

1. **Courage turned inward**: Desire is an enemy that never leaves; one may know the right course and still yield, so Aristotle trusts habit, since we become temperate by doing temperate acts.

SKETCH: spectrum | Aristotle's Ladder of Self-Mastery
left: Ruled by desire
right: Master of self
- Intemperance
- Akrasia
- Enkrateia
- Sophrosyne

2. **Shared wisdom**: The Dhammapada holds that one who conquers himself is greater than one who conquers a thousand times a thousand men, and the Gita (6.6) calls the mind a friend only to the self-controlled.
3. **Freedom, not denial**: Self-mastery is **eudaimonia**, a flourishing life in which desires serve reason.

**Self-Conquest in the Present Context**

1. **Integrity in office**: Corruption is desire winning over duty; the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 is an outer wall, but only inner restraint holds when no one is watching.
2. **Consumerism and climate**: Mission LiFE (2022) asks for mindful consumption, echoing Gandhi's warning that the earth meets every need but not every greed.
3. **Restraint at the peak**: Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation Movement after Chauri Chaura in 1922, a harder victory over his own momentum than any over the Raj.

**Conclusion**

To me, character is proved by self-rule before it is trusted with rule over others. A civil servant who has conquered greed and anger needs no watcher, and such **self-restraint** is the surest guarantee of probity.

Given below are three quotations of great moral thinkers/philosophers. For each of these quotations, bring out what it means to you in the present context: "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies." —Aristotle

Model answer

Practise this question

Contributions of moral thinkers and philosophers from the world14 questions

Ghissu