Alexander of Hales Quotes on Virtue
Alexander of Hales, the English Franciscan who held the first Franciscan chair of theology at Paris, helped to shape the early scholastic synthesis, and the quotes gathered here concern his understanding of virtue. Reflecting the metaphysics of the great Summa associated with his name, Alexander treats the good as inseparable from being itself: beauty, truth, and goodness are convertible aspects of being, so that virtue is the soul's alignment with what is truly real. He holds, in the intellectualist manner of early scholasticism, that the will follows the intellect's apprehension of the good, so that right action depends on right understanding. As a Franciscan, he also gave a central place to poverty, presenting it, when embraced for Christ, as the gateway to true freedom. The quotes here, which distil positions from the Summa Theologica continued by his school, are marked as attributed rather than directly sourced.
Quotes
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Attributed to Alexander of Hales:
“Beauty, truth, and goodness are convertible aspects of being.”
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Attributed to Alexander of Hales:
“The will follows the intellect's apprehension of the good.”
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Attributed to Alexander of Hales:
“Poverty embraced for Christ is the gateway to true freedom.”
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“Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?”
As quoted in Lives by Plutarch , as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough -
“For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.”
Quoted by Plutarch in Life of Alexander from Plutarch's Lives as translated by John Dryden (1683) -
“What an excellent horse do they lose, for want of address and boldness to manage him! ... I could manage this horse better than others do.”
Statement upon seeing Bucephalas being led away as useless and beyond training, as quoted in Lives by Plutarch , as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough -
“Shall I pass by and leave you lying there because of the expedition you led against Greece, or shall I set you up again because of your magnanimity and your virtues in other respects?”
Pausing and addressing to a fallen statue of Xerxes the Great Plutarch . The age of Alexander: nine Greek lives . Penguin, 1977. p. 294