Letter 118 — On the Vanity of Place-seeking (§11)

“I mean something like this: there are certain things which are neither good nor bad—as military or diplomatic service, or the pronouncing of legal decisions. When such pursuits have been honourably conducted, they begin to be good, and they change over from the “indifferent” class into the Good. The Good results from partnership with the honourable, but the honourable is good in itself. The Good springs from the honourable, but the latter from itself. What is good might have been bad; what is honourable could never have been anything but good.”