Defining Honor
If I were to ask half a dozen people at random to tell me what they meant by the word "honor," I think that I would probably receive very different answers. One of the reasons for this is that it often means different things in the minds of different people. For instance, we say that it was a great honor for Jim Smith to be elected captain of the football team; and then, on the other hand, we talk about a code of honor, -- or the laws of honor. What does Jim Smith's being captain of the eleven have to do with the laws of honor? What we mean, in the case of Jim, is that his election as captain shows that the other boys have confidence in his play, and therefore this position gives him a ...
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people before the Christian era. You know that, after the fall of the great Roman Empire, there was a period of about a thousand years, when the light of civilization went out in Europe, and the darkness of ignorance and barbarism took its place. During these dark days, there was much going on that was not better and sometimes even worse from a moral point of view than in the days of the Roman Empire; but, when the minds of men began to wake up again, their standards really had advanced further than the old heathen standards of life. A seed Christian principle had been germinating for all these years and finally blossomed out in the Age of Chivalry. This, as you know, was an assertion first of all that the notion that "Might makes Right" is false, although it had been almost universally believed to be true, in practice, before the coming of Christ. The orders of knighthood which arose in various parts of Europe were composed of men who made it their business to bring order out of ...
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is one of the most destructive and degrading to character and true manliness. This is so because, when we seek reputation for its own sake, we are yielding to the temptation of vanity; and vanity is a weakness and disease of the soul. Everybody has temptations to overcome, and it is everybody's business to know and work against his weaknesses; but, when our chief ambition in life fosters our weakness, and we deceive ourselves by giving the name of "honor" to that which weakens us, we can hardly expect to grow stronger as the years go by.
The old knights had the right idea of honor, and there have been a great variety of orders of chivalry in different countries, such as those ...
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"Defining Honor." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 1 Jun. 2007. Web. 27 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Defining-Honor/65772>
"Defining Honor." Essayworld.com. June 1, 2007. Accessed December 27, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Defining-Honor/65772.
"Defining Honor." Essayworld.com. June 1, 2007. Accessed December 27, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Defining-Honor/65772.
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