Honor
idea · 5 works · 13 mentions · 22 anchored passages
honor · timê · honorable · noble · renown · shame · valor · base · base nature · disgrace
in the texts
Iliad
The Greek concept of honor or due prestige, explicitly glossed and central to the quarrel over prizes.
and you, Achilles, strive not further with the king, for no man who by the grace of Zeus wields a scepter has like honor [ timê] with Agamemnon.
surely Zeus, who thunders from Olympus, might have given honor [ timê] in return.
for your pleasure, not ours - to gain satisfaction [ timê] from the Trojans for your shameless self and for Menelaos.
Nicomachean Ethics
Public esteem, considered and rejected as the Supreme Good because it depends more on those who confer it than on its possessor.
Men of refinement, on the other hand, and men of action think that the Good is honor—for this may be said to be the end of the Life of Politics.
It is clear therefore that in the opinion at all events of men of action, virtue is a greater good than honor;
and that which is the first principle and cause of things good we agree to be something honorable and divine.
Ajax
Heroic reputation, martial worth, and the shame of dishonor that shape Ajax's reasoning.
but I, his son, who came after him to this same ground of Troy with no less might and proved the service of my hand in no meaner deeds, I am ruined as you see by dishonor from the Greeks.
Just so with the passing of the night loud tumults oppressed us to our dishonor, telling how you visited the meadow wild with horses and destroyed the cattle of the Greeks, their spoil, prizes of the spear which had not yet been shared, how you killed them with flashing iron.
Such things will men say, and so will destiny afflict me while the shame of these words will stain you and your family.
Philoctetes
Honor is the moral value Neoptolemus invokes against deceit and Philoctetes invokes in asking for rescue.
Still I prefer, my king, to fail when doing what is honorable than to be victorious in a dishonorable manner.
but if you perform it, boy, you will win the prize of highest honor—if I return alive to Oeta’s soil.
Odysseus:
Nicocles or the Cyprians
Public esteem, praise, and recognition that follow justice, temperance, virtue, and loyal service.
For these reasons, and with these thoughts in mind, I was more assiduous than anyone else in the practice of temperance, and I chose for my pleasures, not those which are found in acts which yield no honor, but those which are found in the good repute which rewards nobility of character.
Believe that you should love and honor those whom your king loves and honors, in order that you may win from me these same distinctions.
Do not strive to gain riches rather than a good name, knowing that both among the Hellenes and the barbarians as well those who have the highest reputation for virtue have at their command the greatest number of good things.