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A State Is An Association Of Similar Persons Whose Aim Is The Best Life Possible. What Is Best Is Happiness, And To Be Happy Is An Active Exercise Of Virtue And A Complete Employment Of It.

-Aristotle

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A State Is An

Aristotle

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A State Is An Association Of Similar Persons Whose Aim Is The Best Life Possible. What Is Best Is Happiness, And To Be Happy Is An Active Exercise Of Virtue And A Complete Employment Of It.

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All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

Happiness Comes From Theperfect Practice Of Virtue.

That Which Is Excellent Endures.

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

For Imitation Is Natural To Man From His Infancy. Man Differs From Other Animals Particularly In This, That He Is Imitative, And Acquires His Rudiments Of Knowledge In This Way; Besides, The Delight In It Is Universal.

Happiness Is A Thing Honored And Perfect. This Seems To Be Borne Out By The Fact That It Is A First Principle Or Starting-point, Since All Other Things That All Men Do Are Done For Its Sake; And That Which Is The First Principle And Cause Of Things Good We Agree To Be Something Honorable And Divine.

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers, And Oligarchy In Which The Rich; It Is Only An Accident That The Free Are The Many And The Rich Are The Few.

In Cases Of This Sort, Let Us Say Adultery, Rightness And Wrongness Do Not Depend On Committing It With The Right Woman At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, But The Mere Fact Of Committing Such Action At All Is To Do Wrong.

It Is Absurd To Hold That A Man Ought To Be Ashamed Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With His Limbs, But Not Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With Speech And Reason, When The Use Of Rational Speech Is More Distinctive Of A Human Being Than The Use Of His Limbs.

Young People Are In A Condition Like Permanent Intoxication, Because Life Is Sweet And They Are Growing.

The Most Important Relationship We Can All Have Is The One You Have With Yourself, The Most Important Journey You Can Take Is One Of Self-discovery. To Know Yourself, You Must Spend Time With Yourself, You Must Not Be Afraid To Be Alone. Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

Important Relationships

The Greatest Crimes Are Caused By Surfeit, Not By Want.

When You Ask A Dumb Question, You Get A Smart Answer.

A State Is Not A Mere Society, Having A Common Place, Established For The Prevention Of Mutual Crime And For The Sake Of Exchange. Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Mere Companionship.

Bad People...are In Conflict With Themselves; They Desire One Thing And Will Another, Like The Incontinent Who Choose Harmful Pleasures Instead Of What They Themselves Believe To Be Good.

Indeed, We May Go Further And Assert That Anyone Who Does Not Delight In Fine Actions Is Not Even A Good Man.

The Same Thing May Have All The Kinds Of Causes, E.g. The Moving Cause Of A House Is The Art Or The Builder, The Final Cause Is The Function It Fulfils, The Matter Is Earth And Stones, And The Form Is The Definitory Formula.

It Is Evident That The State Is A Creation Of Nature, And That Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

He Who Thus Considers Things In Their First Growth And Origin ... Will Obtain The Clearest View Of Them.

The State Or Political Community, Which Is The Highest Of All, And Which Embraces All The Rest, Aims At Good In A Greater Degree Than Any Other, And At The Highest Good.

The Line Has Magnitude In One Way, The Plane In Two Ways, And The Solid In Three Ways, And Beyond These There Is No Other Magnitude Because The Three Are All.

Youth Should Be Kept Strangers To All That Is Bad, And Especially To Things Which Suggest Vice Or Hate. When The Five Years Have Passed Away, During The Two Following Years They Must Look On At The Pursuits Which They Are Hereafter To Learn. There Are Two Periods Of Life With Reference To Which Education Has To Be Divided, From Seven To The Age Of Puberty, And Onwards To The Age Of One And Twenty.

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

For Suppose That Every Tool We Had Could Perform Its Task, Either At Our Bidding Or Itself Perceiving The Need, And If-like The Statues Made By Dædalus Or The Tripods Of Hephæstus, Of Which The Poet Says That "self-moved They Enter The Assembly Of The Gods" - Shuttles In A Loom Could Fly To And Fro And A Plectrum Play A Lyre All Self-moved, Then Master-craftsmen Would Have No Need Of Servants Nor Masters Of Slaves.

Whosoever Is Delighted In Solitude Is Either A Wild Beast Or A God.

Quite Often Good Things Have Hurtful Consequences. There Are Instances Of Men Who Have Been Ruined By Their Money Or Killed By Their Courage.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

There Is An Error Common To Both Oligarchies And To Democracies: In The Latter The Demagogues, When The Multitude Are Above The Law, Are Always Cutting The City In Two By Quarrels With The Rich, Whereas They Should Always Profess To Be Maintaining Their Cause; Just As In Oligarchies The Oligarchs Should Profess To Maintain The Cause Of The People, . .

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

The Man Who Is Truly Good And Wise Will Bear With Dignity Whatever Fortune Sends, And Will Always Make The Best Of His Circumstances.

Therefore, Even The Lover Of Myth Is A Philosopher; For Myth Is Composed Of Wonder.

For Even They Who Compose Treatises Of Medicine Or Natural Philosophy In Verse Are Denominated Poets: Yet Homer And Empedocles Have Nothing In Common Except Their Metre; The Former, Therefore, Justly Merits The Name Of The Poet; While The Other Should Rather Be Called A Physiologist Than A Poet.

There Is Also A Doubt As To What Is To Be The Supreme Power In The State: - Is It The Multitude? Or The Wealthy? Or The Good? Or The One Best Man? Or A Tyrant?

Of All The Varieties Of Virtues, Liberalism Is The Most Beloved.

If You Prove The Cause, You At Once Prove The Effect; And Conversely Nothing Can Exist Without Its Cause.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

Therefore The Good Man Ought To Be A Lover Of Self, Since He Will Then Both Benefit Himself By Acting Nobly And Aid His Fellows; But The Bad Man Ought Not To Be A Lover Of Self, Since He Will Follow His Base Passions, And So Injure Both Himself And His Neighbors. With The Bad Man Therefore, What He Does Is Not In Accord With What He Ought To Do, But The Good Man Does What He Ought, Since Intelligence Always Chooses For Itself That Which Is Best, And The Good Man Obeys His Intelligence.

In Order To Be Effective You Need Not Only Virtue But Also Mental Strength.

Bravery Is A Mean State Concerned With Things That Inspire Confidence And With Things Fearful ... And Leading Us To Choose Danger And To Face It, Either Because To Do So Is Noble, Or Because Not To Do So Is Base. But To Court Death As An Escape From Poverty, Or From Love, Or From Some Grievous Pain, Is No Proof Of Bravery, But Rather Of Cowardice.

Moral Virtue Is ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Of Excess And That Of Defect, And ... It Is No Small Task To Hit The Mean In Each Case, As It Is Not, For Example, Any Chance Comer, But Only The Geometer, Who Can Find The Center Of A Given Circle.

No Excellent Soul Is Exempt From A Mixture Of Madness.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

Of Governments There Are Said To Be Only Two Forms - Democracy And Oligarchy. For Aristocracy Is Considered To Be A Kind Of Oligarchy, As Being The Rule Of A Few, And The So-called Constitutional Government To Be Really A Democracy.

The Worst Form Of Inequality Is To Try To Make Unequal Things Equal.

Learning Is Not Child's Play; We Cannot Learn Without Pain.

[meanness] Is More Ingrained In Man's Nature Than Prodigality; The Mass Of Mankind Are Avaricious Rather Than Open-handed.

In Bad Or Corrupted Natures The Body Will Often Appear To Rule Over The Soul, Because They Are In An Evil And Unnatural Condition. At All Events We May Firstly Observe In Living Creatures Both A Despotical And A Constitutional Rule; For The Soul Rules The Body With A Despotical Rule, Whereas The Intellect Rules The Appetites With A Constitutional And Royal Rule. And It Is Clear That The Rule Of The Soul Over The Body, And Of The Mind And The Rational Element Over The Passionate, Is Natural And Expedient; Whereas The Equality Of The Two Or The Rule Of The Inferior Is Always Hurtful.

. . . The Man Is Free, We Say, Who Exists For His Own Sake And Not For Another's.

The Same Ideas, One Must Believe, Recur In Men's Minds Not Once Or Twice But Again And Again.

Those Who Believe That All Virtue Is To Be Found In Their Own Party Principles Push Matters To Extremes; They Do Not Consider That Disproportion Destroys A State.

Equality Is Of Two Kinds, Numerical And Proportional; By The First I Mean Sameness Of Equality In Number Or Size; By The Second, Equality Of Ratios.

Time Past, Even God Is Deprived Of The Power Of Recalling.

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers.

True Happiness Flows From The Possession Of Wisdom And Virtue And Not From The Possession Of External Goods.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

When We Look At The Matter From Another Point Of View, Great Caution Would Seem To Be Required. For The Habit Of Lightly Changing The Laws Is An Evil, And, When The Advantage Is Small, Some Errors Both Of Lawgivers And Rulers Had Better Be Left; The Citizen Will Not Gain So Much By Making The Change As He Will Lose By The Habit Of Disobedience.

Just As A Royal Rule, If Not A Mere Name, Must Exist By Virtue Of Some Great Personal Superiority In The King, So Tyranny, Which Is The Worst Of Governments, Is Necessarily The Farthest Removed From A Well-constituted Form; Oligarchy Is Little Better, For It Is A Long Way From Aristocracy, And Democracy Is The Most Tolerable Of The Three.

As Often As We Do Good, We Offer Sacrifices To God.

Sacrifice To God

Money Is A Guarantee That We Can Have What We Want In The Future

Guarantees That

Happiness Is The Settling Of The Soul Into Its Most Appropriate Spot.

Since Music Has So Much To Do With The Molding Of Character, It Is Necessary That We Teach It To Our Children.

Persuasion Is Effected Through The Medium Of The Hearers, When They Shall Have Been Brought To A State Of Excitement Under The Influence Of Speech; For We Do Not, When Influenced By Pain Or Joy, Or Partiality Or Dislike, Award Our Decisions In The Same Way; About Which Means Of Persuasion Alone, I Declare That The System-mongers Of The Present Day Busy Themselves.

Why Do Men Seek Honour? Surely In Order To Confirm The Favorable Opinion They Have Formed Of Themselves.

No State Will Be Well Administered Unless The Middle Class Holds Sway.

To Be Always Seeking After The Useful Does Not Become Free And Exalted Souls.

Any Change Of Government Which Has To Be Introduced Should Be One Which Men, Starting From Their Existing Constitutions, Will Be Both Willing And Able To Adopt, Since There Is Quite As Much Trouble In The Reformation Of An Old Constitution As In The Establishment Of A New One, Just As To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn.

In General, What Is Written Must Be Easy To Read And Easy To Speak; Which Is The Same.

Even If We Could Suppose The Citizen Body To Be Virtuous, Without Each Of Them Being So, Yet The Latter Would Be Better, For In The Virtue Of Each The Virtue Of All Is Involved.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

He Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy Whereas The Man Of No Virtue Or Ability Is His Own Worst Enemy And Is Afraid Of Solitude.

Art Completes What Nature Cannot Bring To Finish. The Artist Gives Us Knowledge Of Nature's Unrealized Ends.

The Same Things Are Best Both For Individuals And For States, And These Are The Things Which The Legislator Ought To Implant In The Minds Of His Citizens.

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

Emotions Of Any Kind Can Be Evoked By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore Music Has The Power To Form Character.

What Soon Grows Old? Gratitude.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

Nor Need It Cause Surprise That Things Disagreeable To The Good Man Should Seem Pleasant To Some Men; For Mankind Is Liable To Many Corruptions And Diseases, And The Things In Question Are Not Really Pleasant, But Only Pleasant To These Particular Persons, Who Are In A Condition To Think Them So.

For Knowing Is Spoken Of In Three Ways: It May Be Either Universal Knowledge Or Knowledge Proper To The Matter In Hand Or Actualising Such Knowledge; Consequently Three Kinds Of Error Also Are Possible.

Now The Soul Of Man Is Divided Into Two Parts, One Of Which Has A Rational Principle In Itself, And The Other, Not Having A Rational Principle In Itself, Is Able To Obey Such A Principle. And We Call A Man In Any Way Good Because He Has The Virtues Of These Two Parts.

If, Then, There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake (everything Else Being Desired For The Sake Of This), And If We Do Not Choose Everything For The Sake Of Something Else (for At That Rate The Process Would Go On To Infinity, So That Our Desire Would Be Empty And Vain), Clearly This Must Be The Good And The Chief Good.

Our Characters Are The Result Of Our Conduct.

Equity Is That Idea Of Justice Which Contravenes The Written Law.

Men Create The Gods After Their Own Images.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

Thus Every Action Must Be Due To One Or Other Of Seven Causes: Chance, Nature, Compulsion, Habit, Reasoning, Anger, Or Appetite.

The Heart Is The Perfection Of The Whole Organism. Therefore The Principles Of The Power Of Perception And The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Must Lie In The Heart.

But The Whole Vital Process Of The Earth Takes Place So Gradually And In Periods Of Time Which Are So Immense Compared With The Length Of Our Life, That These Changes Are Not Observed, And Before Their Course Can Be Recorded From Beginning To End Whole Nations Perish And Are Destroyed.

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways...while To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way.

Democracy Is When The Indigent, And Not The Men Of Property, Are The Rulers.

Rising Before Daylight Is Also To Be Commended; It Is A Healthy Habit, And Gives More Time For The Management Of The Household As Well As For Liberal Studies.

We Must As Second Best, As People Say, Take The Least Of The Evils.

... There Must Then Be A Principle Of Such A Kind That Its Substance Is Activity.

Words Of Wisdom

Either A Beast Or A God.

Today, See If You Can Stretch Your Heart And Expand Your Love So That It Touches Not Only Those To Whom You Can Give It Easily, But Also To Those Who Need It So Much.

A Flatterer Is A Friend Who Is Your Inferior, Or Pretends To Be So.

Wit Is Educated Insolence.

But It Is Not At All Certain That This Superiority Of The Many Over The Sound Few Is Possible In The Case Of Every People And Every Large Number. There Are Some Whom It Would Be Impossible: Otherwise The Theory Would Apply To Wild Animals- And Yet Some Men Are Hardly Any Better Than Wild Animals.

It Is More Difficult To Organize A Peace Than To Win A War; But The Fruits Of Victory Will Be Lost If The Peace Is Not Organized.

Meanness Is Incurable; It Cannot Be Cured By Old Age, Or By Anything Else.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

Think As Wise Men Do, But Speak As The Common People Do.

What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.

Of The Tyrant, Spies And Informers Are The Principal Instruments. War Is His Favorite Occupation, For The Sake Of Engrossing The Attention Of The People, And Making Himself Necessary To Them As Their Leader.

Thou Wilt Find Rest From Vain Fancies If Thou Doest Every Act In Life As Though It Were Thy Last.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

Of Mankind In General, The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole.

Character Education

Music Directly Imitates The Passions Or States Of The Soul...when One Listens To Music That Imitates A Certain Passion, He Becomes Imbued Withthe Same Passion; And If Over A Long Time He Habitually Listens To Music That Rouses Ignoble Passions, His Whole Character Will Be Shaped To An Ignoble Form.

Virtue Is The Golden Mean Between Two Vices, The One Of Excess And The Other Of Deficiency.

When...we, As Individuals, Obey Laws That Direct Us To Behave For The Welfare Of The Community As A Whole, We Are Indirectly Helping To Promote The Pursuit Of Happiness By Our Fellow Human Beings.

Pursuit Of Happiness

...in This Way The Structure Of The Universe- I Mean, Of The Heavens And The Earth And The Whole World- Was Arranged By One Harmony Through The Blending Of The Most Opposite Principles.

Every Wicked Man Is In Ignorance As To What He Ought To Do, And From What To Abstain, And It Is Because Of Error Such As This That Men Become Unjust And, In A Word, Wicked.

By 'life,' We Mean A Thing That Can Nourish Itself And Grow And Decay.

That Which Is In Locomotion Must Arrive At The Half-way Stage Before It Arrives At The Goal.

Fine Friendship Requires Duration Rather Than Fitful Intensity.

The Body Is Most Fully Developed From Thirty To Thirty-five Years Of Age, The Mind At About Forty-nine.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

Education And Morals Will Be Found Almost The Whole That Goes To Make A Good Man.

We Are The Sum Of Our Actions, And Therefore Our Habits Make All The Difference.

Be A Free Thinker And Don't Accept Everything You Hear As Truth. Be Critical And Evaluate What You Believe In.

Imagination Is A Sort Of Faint Perception.

Finally, If Nothing Can Be Truly Asserted, Even The Following Claim Would Be False, The Claim That There Is No True Assertion.

Bashfulness Is An Ornament To Youth, But A Reproach To Old Age.

.. For Desire Is Like A Wild Beast, And Anger Perverts Rulers And The Very Best Of Men. Hence Law Is Intelligence Without Appetition.

The Gods Too Are Fond Of A Joke.

These Virtues Are Formed In Man By His Doing The Actions ... The Good Of Man Is A Working Of The Soul In The Way Of Excellence In A Complete Life.

Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.

Mothers Are Fonder Than Fathers Of Their Children Because They Are More Certain They Are Their Own.

Sophocles Said He Drew Men As They Ought To Be, And Euripides As They Were.

The Soul Becomes Prudent By Sitting And Being Quiet.

Those Who Act Receive The Prizes.

But Nothing Is Yet Clear On The Subject Of The Intellect And The Contemplative Faculty. However, It Seems To Be Another Kind Of Soul, And This Alone Admits Of Being Separated, As That Which Is Eternal From That Which Is Perishable, While It Is Clear From These Remarks That The Other Parts Of The Soul Are Not Separable, As Some Assert Them To Be, Though It Is Obvious That They Are Conceptually Distinct.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

But Also Philosophy Is Not About Perceptible Substances They, You See, Are Prone To Destruction.

Words Of Wisdom

Happiness Itself Is Sufficient Excuse. Beautiful Things Are Right And True; So Beautiful Actions Are Those Pleasing To The Gods. Wise Men Have An Inward Sense Of What Is Beautiful, And The Highest Wisdom Is To Trust This Intuition And Be Guided By It. The Answer To The Last Appeal Of What Is Right Lies Within A Man's Own Breast. Trust Thyself.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Pursuit, Is Thought To Aim At Some Good; And For This Reason The Good Has Rightly Been Declared To Be That At Which All Things Aim.

Speech Is The Representation Of The Mind, And Writing Is The Representation Of Speech.

If Happiness, Then, Is Activity Expressing Virtue, It Is Reasonable For It To Express The Supreme Virtue, Which Will Be The Virtueof The Best Thing.

A Whole Is That Which Has A Beginning, A Middle And An End.

Politicians Also Have No Leisure, Because They Are Always Aiming At Something Beyond Political Life Itself, Power And Glory, Or Happiness.

For That Which Has Become Habitual, Becomes As It Were Natural.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

Thus It Is Thought That Justice Is Equality; And So It Is, But Not For All Persons, Only For Those That Are Equal. Inequality Also Is Thought To Be Just; And So It Is, But Not For All, Only For The Unequal. We Make Bad Mistakes If We Neglect This For Whom When We Are Deciding What Is Just. The Reason Is That We Are Making Judgements About Ourselves, And People Are Generally Bad Judges Where Their Own Interests Are Involved.

And What Has Come To Prevail In Democracies Is The Very Reverse Of Beneficial, In Those, That Is, Which Are Regarded As The Most Democratically Run. The Reason For This Lies In The Failure Properly To Define Liberty. For There Are Two Marks By Which Democracy Is Thought To Be Defined: "sovereignty Of The Majority" And "liberty." "just" Is Equated With What Is Equal, And The Decision Of The Majority As To What Is Equal Is Regarded As Sovereign; And Liberty Is Seen In Terms Of Doing What One Wants.

At His Best, Man Is The Noblest Of All Animals; Separated From Law And Justice He Is The Worst.

It Will Contribute Towards One's Object, Who Wishes To Acquire A Facility In The Gaining Of Knowledge, To Doubt Judiciously.

Our Youth Should Also Be Educated With Music And Physical Education.

All Men Naturally Desire Knowledge. An Indication Of This Is Our Esteem For The Senses; For Apart From Their Use We Esteem Them For Their Own Sake, And Most Of All The Sense Of Sight. Not Only With A View To Action, But Even When No Action Is Contemplated, We Prefer Sight, Generally Speaking, To All The Other Senses. The Reason Of This Is That Of All The Senses Sight Best Helps Us To Know Things, And Reveals Many Distinctions.

A Tragedy Is That Moment Where The Hero Comes Face To Face With His True Identity.

All Men Desire By Nature To Know.

Knowing What Is Right Does Not Make A Sagacious Man.

Tools May Be Animate As Well As Inanimate; For Instance, A Ship's Captain Uses A Lifeless Rudder, But A Living Man For Watch; For A Servant Is, From The Point Of View Of His Craft, Categorized As One Of Its Tools. So Any Piece Of Property Can Be Regarded As A Tool Enabling A Man To Live, And His Property Is An Assemblage Of Such Tools; A Slave Is A Sort Of Living Piece Of Property; And Like Any Other Servant Is A Tool In Charge Of Other Tools.

The Soul Of Animals Is Characterized By Two Faculties, (a) The Faculty Of Discrimination Which Is The Work Of Thought And Sense, And (b) The Faculty Of Originating Local Movement.

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation. We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence, But We Rather Have Those Because We Have Acted Rightly. We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence, Then, Is Not An Act But A Habit.

Here And Elsewhere We Shall Not Obtain The Best Insight Into Things Until We Actually See Them Growing From The Beginning.

Self-sufficiency Is Both A Good And An Absolute Good.

To Be Angry Is Easy. But To Be Angry With The Right Man At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, That Is Not Easy.

It Is Not Always The Same Thing To Be A Good Man And A Good Citizen.

If The State Cannot Be Entirely Composed Of Good Men, And Yet Each Citizen Is Expected To Do His Own Business Well, And Must Therefore Have Virtue, Still Inasmuch As All The Citizens Cannot Be Alike, The Virtue Of The Citizen And Of The Good Man Cannot Coincide. All Must Have The Virtue Of The Good Citizen - Thus, And Thus Only, Can The State Be Perfect; But They Will Not Have The Virtue Of A Good Man, Unless We Assume That In The Good State All The Citizens Must Be Good.

A Great City Is Not To Be Confounded With A Populous One.

Happiness Is A Certain Activity Of Soul In Conformity With Perfect Goodness

A Speaker Who Is Attempting To Move People To Thought Or Action Must Concern Himself With Pathos.

But Then In What Way Are Things Called Good? They Do Not Seem To Be Like The Things That Only Chance To Have The Same Name. Are Goods One Then By Being Derived From One Good Or By All Contributing To One Good, Or Are They Rather One By Analogy? Certainly As Sight Is In The Body, So Is Reason In The Soul, And So On In Other Cases.

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways . . . While To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way (for Which Reason Also One Is Easy And The Other Difficult - To Miss The Mark Easy, To Hit It Difficult).

We Can Do Noble Acts Without Ruling The Earth And Sea.

If You Would Understand Anything, Observe Its Beginning And Its Development

If, Therefore, There Is Any One Superior In Virtue And In The Power Of Performing The Best Actions, Him We Ought To Follow And Obey, But He Must Have The Capacity For Action As Well As Virtue.

It Has Been Well Said That 'he Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.' The Two Are Not The Same, But The Good Citizen Ought To Be Capable Of Both; He Should Know How To Govern Like A Freeman, And How To Obey Like A Freeman - These Are The Virtues Of A Citizen.

We Are Better Able To Study Our Neighbours Than Ourselves, And Their Actions Than Our Own.

Some Men Are Just As Sure Of The Truth Of Their Opinions As Are Others Of What They Know.

Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Characteristics

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

If We State The Function Of Man To Be A Certain Kind Of Life, And This To Be An Activity Or Actions Of The Soul Implying A Rational Principle, And The Function Of A Good Man To Be The Good And Noble Performance Of These, And If Any Action Is Well Performed When It Is Performed In Accordance With The Appropriate Excellence Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, And If There Are More Than One Virtue, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.

Shame Is An Ornament To The Young; A Disgrace To The Old.

Dignity Does Not Consist In Possessing Honors, But In Deserving Them.

We Have No Evidence As Yet About Mind Or The Power To Think; It Seems To Be A Widely Different Kind Of Soul, Differing As What Is Eternal From What Is Perishable; It Alone Is Capable Of Existence In Isolation From All Other Psychic Powers.

If Men Are Given Food, But No Chastisement Nor Any Work, They Become Insolent.

All Are Agreed That The Various Moral Qualities Are In A Sense Bestowed By Nature: We Are Just, And Capable Of Temperance, And Brave, And Possessed Of The Other Virtues From The Moment Of Our Birth. But Nevertheless We Expect To Find That True Goodness Is Something Different, And That The Virtues In The True Sense Come To Belong To Us In Another Way. For Even Children And Wild Animals Possess The Natural Dispositions, Yet Without Intelligence These May Manifestly Be Harmful.

Good Laws, If They Are Not Obeyed, Do Not Constitute Good Government.

Neglect Of An Effective Birth Control Policy Is A Never-failing Source Of Poverty Which, In Turn, Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

The Virtue Of The Good Man Is Necessarily The Same As The Virtue Of The Citizen Of The Perfect State.

The Brave Man, If He Be Compared With The Coward, Seems Foolhardy; And, If With The Foolhardy Man, Seems A Coward.

And It Is Characteristic Of Man That He Alone Has Any Sense Of Good And Evil, Of Just And Unjust, And The Like, And The Association Of Living Beings Who Have This Sense Makes Family And A State.

Should A Man Live Underground, And There Converse With The Works Of Art And Mechanism, And Should Afterwards Be Brought Up Into The Open Day, And See The Several Glories Of The Heaven And Earth, He Would Immediately Pronounce Them The Work Of Such A Being As We Define God To Be.

Nature Herself, As Has Been Often Said, Requires That We Should Be Able, Not Only To Work Well, But To Use Leisure Well; For, As I Must Repeat Once Again, The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure. Both Are Required, But Leisure Is Better Than Occupation And Is Its End.

The High-minded Man Does Not Bear Grudges, For It Is Not The Mark Of A Great Soul To Remember Injuries, But To Forget Them.

So We Must Lay It Down That The Association Which Is A State Exists Not For The Purpose Of Living Together But For The Sake Of Noble Actions. Those Who Contribute Most To This Kind Of Association Are For That Very Reason Entitled To A Larger Share In The State Than Those Who, Though They May Be Equal Or Even Superior In Free Birth And In Family, Are Inferior In The Virtue That Belongs To A Citizen. Similarly They Are Entitled To A Larger Share Than Those Who Are Superior In Riches But Inferior In Virtue.

Nothing Is What Rocks Dream About

There Is No Such Thing As Committing Adultery With The Right Woman, At The Right Time, And In The Right Way, For It Is Simply Wrong.

The Things Best To Know Are First Principles And Causes, But These Things Are Perhaps The Most Difficult For Men To Grasp, For They Are Farthest Removed From The Senses.

. .we Would Have To Say That Hereditary Succession Is Harmful. You May Say The King, Having Sovereign Power, Will Not In That Case Hand Over To His Children. But It Is Hard To Believe That: It Is A Difficult Achievement, Which Expects Too Much Virtue Of Human Nature.

The Family Is The Association Established By Nature For The Supply Of Men's Everyday Wants.

Friends Are Much Better Tried In Bad Fortune Than In Good.

Excellence Or Virtue In A Man Will Be The Disposition Which Renders Him A Good Man And Also Which Will Cause Him To Perform His Function Well.

The Greatest Injustices Proceed From Those Who Pursue Excess, Not By Those Who Are Driven By Necessity.

The Science That Studies The Supreme Good For Man Is Politics.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

Happiness Is A Quality Of The Soul...not A Function Of One's Material Circumstances.

Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?

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