Virtuous-
adjective
1. Having or showing virtue, especially moral excellence: synonym: moral.
2. Chaste (especially in a woman)
3. Possessing or exhibiting virtue.

The goal of Stoicism is to assist the individual achieving a virtuous life.

The above definition is of course a more modern interpretation of Virtue.

Virtue was called ‘Summum Bonum’ or the ‘Highest Good’ by Cicero. Or the real aim of life.
In order to achieve virtue or become virtuous, one had to master the four Stoic ‘Virtues’.

Wisdom
Courage
Temperance
Justice

WISDOM -
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own” — Epictetus

It’s the meaning of Philosophy: a love of wisdom.
Wisdom is defined as the knowledge of what is and is not good or evil. Knowledge of what we ought to choose. What to be aware of, and what is indifferent.

Possessing this knowledge informs your decisions. It should allow you not to act impulsively or irrationally.

Wisdom is harnessing what you’ve learned and using it in your everyday life.
“Works, not words.” - Seneca

TEMPERANCE -
“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Aristotle called it ‘The golden mean’ or the middle…
That area between excess and deprivation. Not too much, nor too little. ‘Your share’
Seneca the younger said:
“You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”

Temperance comes from the knowledge that ‘abundance’ comes from what is essential. It is often used interchangeably with ‘self control’. Not just material things, but in pleasure, pain, admiration, contempt, failure or triumph.

Temperance is guarding against extremes, not relying on momentary pleasure for happiness nor allowing the temporariness of pain to destroy it.

COURAGE-
“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.” — Epictetus, Discourses

Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed. Persist and resist.” - Epictetus

“Nero can kill me, but he can not harm me.” -Seneca the younger

We all understand Courage.

• We cheer for the runner, who fell, and was injured, but gets up and finishes the race, with no hope of victory.
• The lone warrior who stays back to slow pursuit.
• The 300 at Thermopylae…
• Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man in the known world, the absolute ruler of a decedent empire. Struggling to be good man and not succumb to the intoxication of absolute power…
• Elon Musk buying Twitter.

Each took enormous amounts of courage.
Each required resisting the comfort of the status quo and coming to one’s own judgement.

Stoic Courage; the courage to face misfortune, courage in the face of death, courage to risk your life for your fellow man.
Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with, or rewarded for, disregarding theirs.
Courage to speak your mind and insist on truth.

JUSTICE-
“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Justice is the source of all other virtues.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.” - Seneca the younger

Justice wasn’t an expression, but a way of life to Cicero, and he has been respected for his example of living those words.
“All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined” - John Adams on Cicero

Thomas Jefferson has said that the Declaration of Independence was based on; “the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”

Stoics hold Justice in a much broader scope than the legal system. It is what rules our interactions with other individuals.

When Cicero first defined the four Stoic Virtues, Justice he explains as
“the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”

• That no one do harm to another.
• That one use common possessions as common; private as belonging to their owners.
• We are not born for ourselves alone.
• Men were brought into being for the sake of men, that they might do good to one another.
• We ought to follow nature as a guide, to contribute our part to the common good.
• Good faith, steadfastness, and truth.
  It is useful, he says, to consider what it means to act unjustly. Simple: anything that inflicts injury or harms another being. “For the most part,” Cicero explains, “men are induced to injure others in order to obtain what they covet.”

The most radical idea of Stoicism is
‘Sympatheia’.
The idea that everything in universe is interdependent.
“What injures the hive injures the bee.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.”- Epictetus

“to honor equality, to want to do good, and for a person, being human, to not want to harm human beings—this is the most honorable lesson and it makes just people out of those who learn it.” — Musonius Rufus

What does a Stoic ultimately believe? That they don’t control the world around them, only how they respond—and that they must always respond with courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Life can be crippling worrying about things we have no control over. We always have the capacity to use reason and make choices.
We can use these choices to free ourselves.
We should always try to do the right thing. To be guided by ‘virtue’.
It’s all we really control.
The rest will happen with or without your consent. So why trouble yourself?

“If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, prudence, self-control, courage—than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed—and enjoy it to the full.
But if nothing presents itself that’s superior to the spirit that lives within—the one that has subordinated individual desires to itself, that discriminates among impressions, that has broken free of physical temptations, and subordinated itself to the gods, and looks out for human beings’ welfare—if you find that there’s nothing more important or valuable than that, then don’t make room for anything but it.”
— Marcus Aurelius