Guiding Virtues

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. 
-1 Corinthians 13.13 NLT

I would say that the three guiding virtues that I would choose would be faith, hope, and love.

Faith is an important guiding virute. You cannot make it through this life without believing in something. I do not mean just in a religious sense. There must be some fundamental ideology that becomes your driving force in life. It is something you believe in, and believing in something is faith. Even if you do not trust anything that all the people in the world of all time have to offer, you are expressing faith, faith that you yourself have a better way of doing things.

Hope is the bravest thing. In a way, it is derived from faith. Hope is waiting for what you believe in. It could be simplified by calling it faith combined with patience. However, this takes some of the beauty out of hope. Hope is a positive look on the circumstances of life. It is the belief in a better tomorrow. Those who lack hope do not necessarily lack faith, because one could litterally have faith in the failures of mankind.

Love is the greatest of all the virtues. Without love, there would be little beauty in the world, because love is choosing to look past the flaws and imperfections of humanity to see the simple and unique heartbeats of their existance. Each person has something special that they brought into the world with them when they were born, and love is being able to see that. Yes, they may look plain or even unattractive, but there is something more than meets the eye. Love brings that out of other people. That is why we make friends, because there are valuable things that we cannot bring to life without them.

I do need to clarify that self-love is not love at all. Self love is the only ugly thing in the world, because it chooses not to look at the beautiful things in the world. Loving yourself will cause you to have nothing to share with the world around you because you are hoarding it to your self. Life is to be shared. Hoarding is stealing. Self-love is a cancer that will kill the life and love of the world. That is why people make the distinction "true" love, because there is a love that is false. Those who love falsely, love themseves.
I know I took my answer from the Bible, but I think that this verse is right on. It certainly has helped me a lot, and I hope it can do so for everyone. Regardless, love is for everyone. Remember that.