Providence.

Prudence, or discernment, prudence, which is the first prerequisite for spiritual and moral growth, is the quality of understanding the nature of things, situations, events, and plans as a whole, and about its parts or aspects, and to act accordingly. Specifically, it consists of a trained, refined, and alert rational control of human activity on all levels of life – spiritual, moral, political, economic, scientific, etc. The sphere of action of this virtue is thus concrete life and its ever-new problems.
As such, it was already recognized by the ancient Greek philosophers, who called it ‘knowledge of knowledge’ (Plato), the fundamental principle of morality, the “yardstick” or measure of human action (Socrates), and the indispensable prerequisite of all virtues. Plato, in his Politeia, regarded prudence as the professional virtue of philosophical kings, and or rulers of the state, who must, like every politician or public official, be philosophers.
Aristotle understands sagacity as the summit of the dianoetic, intellectual virtues (Nicomachean Ethics, 6, 5), and the Stoics speak of it as a mediator between the divine world order and the human sphere. They regarded her as the presupposition and guardian of all virtues. Especially thanks to Aristotle, who can be considered a theorist of prudence and all virtues in general, the ancients and after them Christian philosophers that the danger of corruption of moral action, and step by step also of the moral life, threatens a man if, for lack of foresight, he moves away from the center in which virtue is always found. As we have already indicated, if a virtuous act is driven to one side or the other from the center, virtue is transformed into vice.
In the recent past, many people around us, both educated and less educated, have confused tolerance, forbearance, caution, or the virtue of prudence and prudence with cowardice. Others have deliberately lied and called it permissible and justified self-defense. And nearly all stole where they could, and flattered their consciences that it was just compensation. But let’s leave the past behind and look back around us to see what we can learn from the examples of everyday life to see as accurately as possible what this virtue is all about, for here we decide the whole moral life.
Providence
Everyone knows how many children, pupils, and subordinates suffer when parents, teachers, or superiors think that their strictness, intransigence, and perseverance are the fruit of the virtue of fortitude – even though it is often rather a manifestation of unyielding hardness, stubbornness, intransigence, obstinacy, even fanaticism. To the sternness of a boss or father or teacher who demands order, justice, punctuality, responsibility, and consistency, people get used to it over time and only the foolish and lazy continue to reject them. To a hard, harsh, rude person, ruthless, however, no one has a good word, not even when it comes to his just demands. The same can be said of people who confuse the virtue of orderliness with pedantry, querulousness, arbitrariness, etc.
Among the most antipathetic social phenomena are undoubtedly ambition, egoism, egocentrism, arrogance, laziness, recklessness, falsity, envy, contempt for others, etc. In conversation with people who are preoccupied with these vices, it comes out that an arrogant person smugly considers himself a gentleman, who supposedly has pride and a sense of honor and is therefore perfectly “o.k.”. The lazy excuse is that everything must be done with calm and in moderation and that everything has its time – and it doesn’t even cross their minds, that others are paying the price for their carelessness, convenience, and forgetfulness. Reckless people will never admit fault but will declare that they are among those who go firmly to their goal and realize the values that the “dullards who can’t see further than their noses” envy.
False people will find an acceptable explanation for their attitude to their surroundings. They are said to have a right to privacy, to their lifestyle, and their personal affairs; and yet they don’t mind at all that
it’s misleading people. And who doesn’t know those zealots for all that is “holy and good” – people are envious! How inventive this vice is, and how often it cloaks itself under the cloak of virtue! The envious man is incapable of calm reflection, enjoyment, or even sleep. He is everywhere haunted by visions of people who he thinks are more fortunate or more successful than he. Day and night he forges plans to “tear off their masks” and show the whole world what they are …what monsters they are. His speeches are at times full of sanctimony, at others of prophetic pathos and zeal for justice. The only thing he is incapable of recognizing is that his apparent zeal is not the fruit of virtue but of vice – envy.