“The understanding of what you are, whatever it be―ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous―the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue.
Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom. It is only in virtue that you can discover, that you can live―not in the cultivation of a virtue, which merely brings about respectability, not understanding and freedom.
There is a difference between being virtuous and becoming virtuous. Being virtuous comes through the understanding of what is, whereas becoming virtuous is postponement, the covering up of what is with what you would like to be. Therefore in becoming virtuous you are avoiding action directly upon what is.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
