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greek-ethicsfeatured in 30 works

Courage

Standing firm against fear and danger — but rightly, neither rashly nor like a coward.

Courage (andreia, literally 'manliness') is the virtue of facing fear, pain, and danger as one should — above all the fear of death in battle. Homeric epic prized it as warrior valor, but Plato (in the Laches) and especially Aristotle refined the idea: in the Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BCE), courage becomes the mean between cowardice and recklessness, exercised for the sake of what is noble. It remained one of the four cardinal virtues throughout Greek, Roman, and later Western ethics.

How it traveled

  1. Iliad
    Ios · -700
    explains
  2. Odyssey
    Ios · -700
    explains
  3. Histories
    Thurii (Magna Graecia) · -425
    explains
  4. History of the Peloponnesian War
    Athens · -400
    explains
  5. Laches
    Athens · -399
    explains
  6. Menexenus
    Athens · -386
    explains
  7. Protagoras
    Athens · -385
    explains
  8. Symposium
    Athens · -385
    explains
  9. Funeral Oration
    Athens · -380
    explains
  10. Panegyricus
    Athens · -380
    explains
  11. Phaedo
    Athens · -380
    explains
  12. Republic
    Athens · -375
    explains
  13. Evagoras
    Athens · -370
    explains
  14. Archidamus
    Athens · -366
    explains
  15. Statesman
    Athens · -358
    explains
  16. Cyropaedia
    Athens · -354
    explains
  17. Hellenica
    Athens · -354
    explains
  18. Memorabilia
    Athens · -354
    explains
  19. Anabasis
    Athens · -354
    explains
  20. Constitution of the Lacedaimonians
    Athens · -354
    explains
  21. Agesilaus
    Athens · -354
    explains
  22. Symposium
    Athens · -354
    explains
  23. Laws
    Athens · -348
    explains
  24. Alcibiades 1
    Athens · -348
    explains
  25. Panathenaicus
    Athens · -339
    explains
  26. The Funeral Speech
    Athens · -338
    explains
  27. Rhetoric
    Chalcis · -335
    explains
  28. Against Ctesiphon
    Athens · -330
    explains
  29. On the Crown
    Athens · -330
    explains
  30. Nicomachean Ethics
    Chalcis · -322
    explains

Key passages(20)

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Eudemian Ethics · Aristotle

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Eudemian Ethics · Aristotle

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Eudemian Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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