In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. Temperance.
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence.
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.