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As The Pleasures Of The Body Are The Ones Which We Most Often Meet With, And As All Men Are Capable Of These, These Have Usurped The Family Title; And Some Men Think These Are The Only Pleasures That Exist, Because They Are The Only Ones Which They Know.

-Aristotle

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As The Pleasures Of

Aristotle

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As The Pleasures Of The Body Are The Ones Which We Most Often Meet With, And As All Men Are Capable Of These, These Have Usurped The Family Title; And Some Men Think These Are The Only Pleasures That Exist, Because They Are The Only Ones Which They Know.

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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.

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

The Appropriate Age For Marrige Is Around Eighteen And Thirty-seven For Man

Funny Relationship

It Would Be Wrong To Put Friendship Before The Truth.

I Say That Habit's But A Long Practice, Friend, And This Becomes Men's Nature In The End.

To Say Of What Is That It Is Not, Or Of What Is Not That It Is, Is False, While To Say Of What Is That It Is, And Of What Is Not That It Is Not, Is True.

The Angry Man Wishes The Object Of His Anger To Suffer In Return; Hatred Wishes Its Object Not To Exist.

Pay Attention To The Young, And Make Them Just As Good As Possible.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

Personal Beauty Is A Greater Recommendation Than Any Letter Of Reference.

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.

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

Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of Soul Exhibiting Excellence, And If There Is More Than One Sort Of Excellence, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.foroneswallowdoesnot Makea Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

Nowadays, For The Sake Of The Advantage Which Is To Be Gained From The Public Revenues And From Office, Men Want To Be Always In Office.

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.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

The Greatest Virtues Are Those Which Are Most Useful To Other Persons.

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation.

Academic Excellence

Anyone Who Has No Need Of Anybody But Himself Is Either A Beast Or A God.

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

Again, The Male Is By Nature Superior, And The Female Inferior; And The One Rules, And The Other Is Ruled; This Principle, Of Necessity, Extends To All Mankind.

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

The Virtues [moral Excellence] Therefore Are Engendered In Us Neither By Nature Nor Yet In Violation Of Nature; Nature Gives Us The Capacity To Receive Them, And This Capacity Is Brought To Maturity By Habit.

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

Humility Is A Flower Which Does Not Grow In Everyone's Garden.

He Who Sees Things Grow From The Beginning Will Have The Best View Of Them.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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.

There Are Two Distinctive Peculiarities By Reference To Which We Characterize The Soul (1) Local Movement And (2) Thinking, Discriminating, And Perceiving. Thinking Both Speculative And Practical Is Regarded As Akin To A Form Of Perceiving; For In The One As Well As The Other The Soul Discriminates And Is Cognizant Of Something Which Is.

These Two Rational Faculties May Be Designated The Scientific Faculty And The Calculative Faculty Respectively; Since Calculation Is The Same As Deliberation, And Deliberation Is Never Exercised About Things That Are Invariable, So That The Calculative Faculty Is A Separate Part Of The Rational Half Of The Soul.

And, Speaking Generally, Passion Seems Not To Be Amenable To Reason, But Only To Force.

In A Democracy The Poor Will Have More Power Than The Rich, Because There Are More Of Them, And The Will Of The Majority Is Supreme.

Democracies Have

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

Shipping Magnate Of The 20th Century If Women Didn't Exist, All The Money In The World Would Have No Meaning.

To Love Someone Is To Identify With Them.

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

That In The Soul Which Is Called Mind (by Mind I Mean That Whereby The Soul Thinks And Judges) Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing. For This Reason It Cannot Reasonably Be Regarded As Blended With The Body

Every Formed Disposition Of The Soul Realizes Its Full Nature In Relation To And Dealing With That Class Of Objects By Which It Is Its Nature To Be Corrupted Or Improved.

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.

Neither By Nature, Then, Nor Contrary To Nature Do The Virtues Arise In Us; Rather We Are Adapted By Nature To Receive Them, And Are Made Perfect By Habit.

Ancient Laws Remain In Force Long After The People Have The Power To Change Them.

The Soul Never Thinks Without A Picture.

If Then It Be Possible That One Contrary Should Exist, Or Be Called Into Existence, The Other Contrary Will Also Appear To Be Possible.

Madness Is Badness Of Spirit, When One Seeks Profit From All Sources.

Friends Hold A Mirror Up To Each Other; Through That Mirror They Can See Each Other In Ways That Would Not Otherwise Be Accessible To Them, And It Is This Mirroring That Helps Them Improve Themselves As Persons.

The Two Qualities Which Chiefly Inspire Regard And Affection Are That A Thing Is Your Own And That It Is Your Only One.

It Is Our Choice Of Good Or Evil That Determines Our Character, Not Our Opinion About Good Or Evil.

Personal Beauty Requires That One Should Be Tall; Little People May Have Charm And Elegance, But Beauty-no.

There Are Three Qualifications Required In Those Who Have To Fill The Highest Offices, - (1) First Of All, Loyalty To The Established Constitution; (2) The Greatest Administrative Capacity; (3) Virtue And Justice Of The Kind Proper To Each Form Of Government.

Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

Those Who Educate Children Well Are More To Be Honored Than They Who Produce Them; For These Only Gave Them Life, Those The Art Of Living Well.

The Ensouled Is Distinguished From The Unsouled By Its Being Alive. Now Since Being Alive Is Spoken Of In Many Ways, Even If Only One Of These Is Present, We Say That The Thing Is Alive, If, For Instance, There Is Intellect Or Perception Or Spatial Movement And Rest Or Indeed Movement Connected With Nourishment And Growth And Decay. It Is For This Reason That All The Plants Are Also Held To Be Alive . . .

The Beginning, As The Proverb Says, Is Half The Whole.

Our Feelings Towards Our Friends Reflect Our Feelings Towards Ourselves.

Governments Which Have A Regard To The Common Interest Are Constituted In Accordance With Strict Principles Of Justice, And Are Therefore True Forms; But Those Which Regard Only The Interest Of The Rulers Are All Defective And Perverted Forms, For They Are Despotic, Whereas A State Is A Community Of Freemen.

Perception Starts With The Eye.

Great Is The Good Fortune Of A State In Which The Citizens Have A Moderate And Sufficient Property.

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

Sacrifice To God

The Society That Loses Its Grip On The Past Is In Danger, For It Produces Men Who Know Nothing But The Present, And Who Are Not Aware That Life Had Been, And Could Be, Different From What It Is.

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

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor. This Alone Cannot Be Imparted By Another; It Is The Mark Of Genius, For To Make Good Metaphors Implies An Eye For Resemblances.

Courage Is The First Of Human Qualities Because It Is The Quality Which Guarantees The Others.

It Is Best To Rise From Life As From A Banquet, Neither Thirsty Nor Drunken.

Men Are Swayed More By Fear Than By Reverence.

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

Happiness, Then, Is Found To Be Something Perfect And Self-sufficient, Being The End To Which Our Actions Are Directed.

Money Is A Guarantee That We May Have What We Want In The Future. Though We Need Nothing At The Moment It Insures The Possibility Of Satisfying A New Desire When It Arises.

Guarantees That

The Best Tragedies Are Conflicts Between A Hero And His Destiny.

If Men Think That A Ruler Is Religious And Has A Reverence For The Gods, They Are Less Afraid Of Suffering Injustice At His Hands.

And This Activity Alone Would Seem To Be Loved For Its Own Sake; For Nothing Arises From It Apart From The Contemplating, While From Practical Activities We Gain More Or Less Apart From The Action. And Happiness Is Thought To Depend On Leisure; For We Are Busy That We May Have Leisure, And Make War That We May Live In Peace.

It Is Not Enough To Win A War; It Is More Important To Organize The Peace.

If There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake, Clearly This Must Be The Good. Will Not Knowledge Of It, Then, Have A Great Influence On Life? Shall We Not, Like Archers Who Have A Mark To Aim At, Be More Likely To Hit Upon What We Should? If So, We Must Try, In Outline At Least, To Determine What It Is.

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.

Wicked Men Obey For Fear, But The Good For Love.

The Rattle Is A Toy Suited To The Infant Mind, And Education Is A Rattle Or Toy For Children Of Larger Growth.

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.

A Tragedy Is A Representation Of An Action That Is Whole And Complete And Of A Certain Magnitude. A Whole Is What Has A Beginning And Middle And End.

At First He Who Invented Any Art That Went Beyond The Common Perceptions Of Man Was Naturally Admired By Men, Not Only Because There Was Something Useful In The Inventions, But Because He Was Thought Wise And Superior To The Rest. But As More Arts Were Invented, And Some Were Directed To The Necessities Of Life, Others To Its Recreation, The Inventors Of The Latter Were Always Regarded As Wiser Than The Inventors Of The Former, Because Their Branches Of Knowledge Did Not Aim At Utility.

Memory Is Therefore, Neither Perception Nor Conception, But A State Or Affection Of One Of These, Conditioned By Lapse Of Time. As Already Observed, There Is No Such Thing As Memory Of The Present While Present, For The Present Is Object Only Of Perception, And The Future, Of Expectation, But The Object Of Memory Is The Past. All Memory, Therefore, Implies A Time Elapsed; Consequently Only Those Animals Which Perceive Time Remember, And The Organ Whereby They Perceive Time Is Also That Whereby They Remember.

The Only Stable State Is The One In Which All Men Are Equal Before The Law.

In Making A Speech One Must Study Three Points: First, The Means Of Producing Persuasion; Second, The Language; Third The Proper Arrangement Of The Various Parts Of The Speech.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

Friends Enhance Our Ability To Think And Act.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

Intuition Is The Source Of Scientific Knowledge.

The Proof That You Know Something Is That You Are Able To Teach It

The Right Constitutions, Three In Number- Kingship, Aristocracy, And Polity- And The Deviations From These, Likewise Three In Number - Tyranny From Kingship, Oligarchy From Aristocracy, Democracy From Polity.

The Aim Of Education Is To Make The Pupil Like And Dislike What He Ought....the Little Human Animal Will Not At First Have The Right Responses. It Must Be Trained To Feel Pleasure, Liking, Disgust, And Hatred At Those Things Which Really Are Pleasant, Likable, Disgusting, And Hateful.

Aim Of Education

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

Different Men Seek After Happiness In Different Ways And By Different Means, And So Make For Themselves Different Modes Of Life And Forms Of Government.

Between Husband And Wife Friendship Seems To Exist By Nature, For Man Is Naturally Disposed To Pairing.

Choice Not Chance Determines Your Destiny [my Family Motto...credited To Aristotle]

Experience Has Shown That It Is Difficult, If Not Impossible, For A Populous State To Be Run By Good Laws.

How Strange It Is That Socrates, After Having Made The Children Common, Should Hinder Lovers From Carnal Intercourse Only, But Should Permit Love And Familiarities Between Father And Son Or Between Brother And Brother, Than Which Nothing Can Be More Unseemly, Since Even Without Them Love Of This Sort Is Improper. How Strange, Too, To Forbid Intercourse For No Other Reason Than The Violence Of The Pleasure, As Though The Relationship Of Father And Son Or Of Brothers With One Another Made No Difference.

The Soul Is The Form Of The Body

To Die In Order To Avoid The Pains Of Poverty, Love, Or Anything That Is Disagreeable, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Of A Coward.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being; For It Is Concerned Neither With Things That Are, Or Come Into Being By Necessity, Nor With Things That Do So In Accordance With Nature.

Between Friends There Is No Need For Justice, But People Who Are Just Still Need The Quality Of Friendship; And Indeed Friendliness Is Considered To Be Justice In The Fullest Sense.

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Any One Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed, There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Choice, 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.

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

Metaphysics Involves Intuitive Knowledge Of Unprovable Starting-points Concepts And Truth And Demonstrative Knowledge Of What Follows From Them.

Words Of Wisdom

The Soul Consists Of Two Parts, One Irrational And The Other Capable Of Reason. (whether These Two Parts Are Really Distinct In The Sense That The Parts Of The Body Or Of Any Other Divisible Whole Are Distinct, Or Whether Though Distinguishable In Thought As Two They Are Inseparable In Reality, Like The Convex And Concave Of A Curve, Is A Question Of No Importance For The Matter In Hand.)

Man Is The Metre Of All Things, The Hand Is The Instrument Of Instruments, And The Mind Is The Form Of Forms.

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

He Who Takes His Fill Of Every Pleasure ... Becomes Depraved; While He Who Avoids All Pleasures Alike ... Becomes Insensible.

Moral Excellence Comes About As A Result Of Habit. We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Moral Virtue Is A Mean . . . Between Two Vices, One Of Excess And The Other Of Defect; . . . It Is Such A Mean Because It Aims At Hitting The Middle Point In Feelings And In Actions. This Is Why It Is A Hard Task To Be Good, For It Is Hard To Find The Middle Point In Anything.

The Greater The Length, The More Beautiful Will The Piece Be By Reason Of Its Size, Provided That The Whole Be Perspicuous.

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.

If Then Nature Makes Nothing Without Some End In View, Nothing To No Purpose, It Must Be That Nature Has Made All Of Them For The Sake Of Man.

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

Before You Heal The Body You Must First Heal The Mind

He Who Cannot See The Truth For Himself, Nor, Hearing It From Others, Store It Away In His Mind, That Man Is Utterly Worthless.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

When The Storytelling Goes Bad In A Society, The Result Is Decadence.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

Whereas The Law Is Passionless, Passion Must Ever Sway The Heart Of Man.

It Is Clearly Better That Property Should Be Private, But The Use Of It Common; And The Special Business Of The Legislator Is To Create In Men This Benevolent Disposition.

Marriage Is Like Retiring As A Bachelor And Getting A Sexual Pension. You Don't Have To Work For The Sex Any More, But You Only Get 65% As Much.

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

Courage Is The First Virtue That Makes All Other Virtues Possible.

Those Who Are Not Angry At The Things They Should Be Angry At Are Thought To Be Fools, And So Are Those Who Are Not Angry In The Right Way, At The Right Time, Or With The Right Persons.

We Ought, So Far As It Lies Within Our Power, To Aspire To Immortality, And Do All That We Can To Live In Conformity With The Highest That Is Within Us; For Even If It Is Small In Quantity, In Power And Preciousness, It Far Excels All The Rest.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

Once More: There Are Three Offices According To Whose Directions The Highest Magistrates Are Chosen In Certain States - Guardians Of The Law, Probuli, Councilors - Of These, The Guardians Of The Law Are An Aristocratical, The Probuli An Oligarchical, The Council A Democratical Institution.

But Is It Just Then That The Few And The Wealthy Should Be The Rulers? And What If They, In Like Manner, Rob And Plunder The People, - Is This Just?

There Also Appears To Be Another Element In The Soul, Which, Though Irrational, Yet In A Manner Participates In Rational Principle.

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

Moral Qualities Are So Constituted As To Be Destroyed By Excess And By Deficiency . . .

The Goodness Or Badness, Justice Or Injustice, Of Laws Varies Of Necessity With The Constitution Of States. This, However, Is Clear, That The Laws Must Be Adapted To The Constitutions. But If So, True Forms Of Government Will Of Necessity Have Just Laws, And Perverted Forms Of Government Will Have Unjust Laws.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

We Give Up Leisure In Order That We May Have Leisure, Just As We Go To War In Order That We May Have Peace.

Man Perfected By Society Is The Best Of All Animals; He Is The Most Terrible Of All When He Lives Without Law And Without Justice. If He Finds Himself An Individual Who Cannot Live In Society, Or Who Pretends He Has Need Of Only His Own Resources Do Not Consider Him As A Member Of Humanity; He Is A Savage Beast Or A God.

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

The Coward Calls The Brave Man Rash, The Rash Man Calls Him A Coward.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

The Investigation Of The Truth Is In One Way Hard, In Another Easy. An Indication Of This Is Found In The Fact That No One Is Able To Attain The Truth Adequately, While, On The Other Hand, No One Fails Entirely, But Everyone Says Something True About The Nature Of All Things, And While Individually They Contribute Little Or Nothing To The Truth, By The Union Of All A Considerable Amount Is Amassed.

But The Virtues We Get By First Exercising Them, As Also Happens In The Case Of The Arts As Well. For The Things We Have To Learn Before We Can Do Them, We Learn By Doing Them, E.g. Men Become Builders By Building And Lyre Players By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

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

The Attainment Of Truth Is Then The Function Of Both The Intellectual Parts Of The Soul. Therefore Their Respective Virtues Are Those Dispositions Which Will Best Qualify Them To Attain Truth.

Those Who Assert That The Mathematical Sciences Say Nothing Of The Beautiful Or The Good Are In Error. For These Sciences Say And Prove A Great Deal About Them; If They Do Not Expressly Mention Them, But Prove Attributes Which Are Their Results Or Definitions, It Is Not True That They Tell Us Nothing About Them. The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

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

Life In The True Sense Is Perceiving Or Thinking.

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

Every Effort Therefore Must Be Made To Perpetuate Prosperity. And, Since That Is To The Advantage Of The Rich As Well As The Poor, All That Accrues From The Revenues Should Be Collected Into A Single Fund And Distributed In Block Grants To Those In Need, If Possible In Lump Sums Large Enough For The Acquisition Of A Small Piece Of Land, But If Not, Enough To Start A Business, Or Work In Agriculture. And If That Cannot Be Done For All, The Distribution Might Be By Tribes Or Some Other Division Each In Turn.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Man To Look For Precision In Each Class Of Things Just So Far As The Nature Of The Subject Admits

We Praise A Man Who Feels Angry On The Right Grounds And Against The Right Persons And Also In The Right Manner At The Right Moment And For The Right Length Of Time.

A State Of The Soul Is Either (1) An Emotion, (2) A Capacity, Or (3) A Disposition; Virtue Therefore Must Be One Of These Three Things.

Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

No One Would Choose A Friendless Existence On Condition Of Having All The Other Things In The World.

Justice Is The Loveliest And Health Is The Best. But The Sweetest To Obtain Is The Heart's Desire.

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.

The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

Whether We Will Philosophize Or We Won't Philosophize, We Must Philosophize.

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be, And Similarly Everything That Depends On Art Or Any Rational Cause, And Especially If It Depends On The Best Of All Causes.

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

It Is Clear That Those Constitutions Which Aim At The Common Good Are Right, As Being In Accord With Absolute Justice; While Those Which Aim Only At The Good Of The Rulers Are Wrong.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Of Men But Of A Life, An Action

The Best Way To Teach Morality Is To Make It A Habit With Children.

Men Cling To Life Even At The Cost Of Enduring Great Misfortune.

Property Should Be In A Certain Sense Common, But, As A General Rule, Private; For, When Every One Has A Distinct Interest, Men Will Not Complain Of One Another, And They Will Make More Progress, Because Every One Will Be Attending To His Own Business.

One May Go Wrong In Many Different Ways, But Right Only In One, Which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed.

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

What It Lies In Our Power To Do, It Lies In Our Power Not To Do.

Great And Frequent Reverses Can Crush And Mar Our Bliss Both By The Pain They Cause And By The Hindrance They Offer To Many Activities. Yet Nevertheless Even In Adversity Nobility Shines Through, When A Man Endures Repeated And Severe Misfortune With Patience, Not Owing To Insensibility But From Generosity And Greatness Of Soul.

In The First Place, Then, Men Should Guard Against The Beginning Of Change, And In The Second Place They Should Not Rely Upon The Political Devices Of Which I Have Already Spoken Invented Only To Deceive The People, For They Are Proved By Experience To Be Useless.

Wicked Men Obey Out Of Fear. Good Men, Out Of Love

My Best Friend Is The Man Who In Wishing Me Well Wishes It For My Sake.

To The Size Of The State There Is A Limit, As There Is To Plants, Animals And Implements, For None Of These Retain Their Facility When They Are Too Large.

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

Most Men Appear To Think That The Art Of Despotic Government Is Statesmanship, And What Men Affirm To Be Unjust And Inexpedient In Their Own Case They Are Not Ashamed Of Practicing Towards Others; They Demand Just Rule For Themselves, But Where Other Men Are Concerned They Care Nothing About It. Such Behavior Is Irrational; Unless The One Party Is, And The Other Is Not, Born To Serve, In Which Case Men Have A Right To Command, Not Indeed All Their Fellows, But Only Those Who Are Intended To Be Subjects; Just As We Ought Not To Hunt Mankind, Whether For Food Or Sacrifice . .

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.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

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

Adoration Is Made Out Of A Solitary Soul Occupying Two Bodies.

The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

Business Or Toil Is Merely Utilitarian. It Is Necessary But Does Not Enrich Or Ennoble A Human Life.

Masculine Republics Give Way To Feminine Democracies, And Feminine Democracies Give Way To Tyranny.

Not To Know Of What Things One Should Demand Demonstration, And Of What One Should Not, Argues Want Of Education.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Only Of A Complete Action, But Of Events Inspiring Fear And Pity. Such An Effect Is Best Produced When The Events Come On Us By Surprise; And The Effect Is Heightened When, At The Same Time, They Follow As Cause And Effect. The Tragic Wonder Will Then Be Great Than If They Happened Of Themselves Or By Accident; For Even Coincidences Are Most Striking When They Have An Air Of Design.

For One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

And Yet The True Creator Is Necessity, Which Is The Mother Of Invention.

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

A Gentleman Is Not Disturbed By Anything

If The Consequences Are The Same It Is Always Better To Assume The More Limited Antecedent, Since In Things Of Nature The Limited, As Being Better, Is Sure To Be Found, Wherever Possible, Rather Than The Unlimited.

The Greatest Thing In Style Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross, Therein Lies Your Vocation. These Two, Your Talents And The Needs Of The World, Are The Great Wake Up Calls To Your True Vocation In Life... To Ignore This, Is In Some Sense, Is To Lose Your Soul.

In All Things Of Nature There Is Something Of The Marvelous.

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

Character Education

That In The Soul Which Is Called The Mind Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing.

Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

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