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Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

-Aristotle

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Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint

Aristotle

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Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

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

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.

The High-minded Man Must Care More For The Truth Than For What People Think.

Our Actions Determine Our Dispositions.

The Seat Of The Soul And The Control Of Voluntary Movement - In Fact, Of Nervous Functions In General, - Are To Be Sought In The Heart. The Brain Is An Organ Of Minor Importance.

The Form Of Government Is A Democracy When The Free, Who Are Also Poor And The Majority, Govern, And An Oligarchy When The Rich And The Noble Govern, They Being At The Same Time Few In Number.

Such An Event Is Probable In Agathon's Sense Of The Word: 'it Is Probable,' He Says, 'that Many Things Should Happen Contrary To Probability.'

The Structural Unity Of The Parts Is Such That, If Any One Of Them Is Displaced Or Removed, The Whole Will Be Disjointed And Disturbed. For A Thing Whose Presence Or Absence Makes No Visible Difference Is Not An Organic Part Of The Whole.

In Seeking For Justice Men Seek For The Mean Or Neutral, For The Law Is The Mean. Again, Customary Laws Have More Weight, And Relate To More Important Matters, Than Written Laws, And A Man May Be A Safer Ruler Than The Written Law, But Not Safer Than The Customary Law.

The Mass Of Mankind Are Evidently Slavish In Their Tastes, Preferring A Life Suitable To Beasts.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor.

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

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

In All Things Which Have A Plurality Of Parts, And Which Are Not A Total Aggregate But A Whole Of Some Sort Distinct From The Parts, There Is Some Cause.

As For The Story, Whether The Poet Takes It Ready Made Or Constructs It For Himself, He Should First Sketch Its General Outline, And Then Fill In The Episodes And Amplify In Detail.

Also, That Which Is Desirable In Itself Is More Desirable Than What Is Desirable Per Accidens.

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

While Most Of Those Who Hold That The Whole Heaven Is Finite Say That The Earth Lies At The Center, The Philosophers Of Italy, The So-called Pythagoreans, Assert The Contrary. They Say That In The Middle There Is Fire, And That The Earth Is One Of The Stars, And By Its Circular Motion Round The Center Produces Night And Day.

A Change In The Shape Of The Body Creates A Change In The State Of The Soul.

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.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge. The Young They Keep Out Of Mischief; To The Old They Are A Comfort And Aid In Their Weakness, And Those In The Prime Of Life They Incite To Noble Deeds.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

When People Are Friends, They Have No Need Of Justice, But When They Are Just, They Need Friendship In Addition.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable; At One Time Two Obols Was Pay Enough; But Now, When This Sum Has Become Customary, Men Always Want More And More Without End.

A Courageous Person Is One Who Faces Fearful Things As He Ought And As Reason Directs For The Sake Of What Is Noble.

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

That Judges Of Important Causes Should Hold Office For Life Is A Questionable Thing, For The Mind Grows Old As Well As The Body.

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.

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

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

Maybe Crying Is A Means Of Cleaning Yourself Out Emotionally. Or Maybe It's Your Last Resort; The Only Way To Express Yourself When Words Fail, The Same As When You Were A Baby And Had No Words.

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

The Word Is A Sign Or Symbol Of The Impressions Or Affections Of The Soul.

Temperance And Bravery, Then, Are Ruined By Excess And Deficiency, But Preserved By The Mean.

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

Try Is A Noisy Way Of Doing Nothing.

Every Rascal Is Not A Thief, But Every Thief Is A Rascal.

One Who Faces And Who Fears The Right Things And From The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Time, Posseses Character Worthy Of Our Trust And Admiration.

In Revolutions The Occasions May Be Trifling But Great Interest Are At Stake.

Greatness Of Spirit Is To Bear Finely Both Good Fourtune And Bad, Honor And Disgrace, And Not To Think Highly Of Luxury Or Attention Or Power Or Victories In Contests, And To Possess A Certain Depth And Magnitude Of Spirit.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because Truth And Justice Are In Their Nature Stronger Than Their Opposites; So That If Decisions Be Made, Not In Conformity To The Rule Of Propriety, It Must Have Been That They Have Been Got The Better Of Through Fault Of The Advocates Themselves: And This Is Deserving Reprehension.

For We Are Inquiring Not In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Since Otherwise Our Inquiry Would Have Been Of No Use

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 Citizens Begin By Giving Up Some Part Of The Constitution, And So With Greater Ease The Government Change Something Else Which Is A Little More Important, Until They Have Undermined The Whole Fabric Of The State.

Injustice Results As Much From Treating Unequals Equally As From Treating Equals Unequally.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

If Liberty And Equality, As Is Thought By Some, Are Chiefly To Be Found In Democracy, They Will Be Best Attained When All Persons Alike Share In Government To The Utmost.

Democracies Have

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).

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.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

A Man Becomes A Friend Whenever Being Loved He Loves In Return.

All Communication Must Lead To Change

Aristocracy Is That Form Of Government In Which Education And Discipline Are Qualifications For Suffrage And Office Holding.

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

The Purpose Of Art Is To Represent The Meaning Of Things. This Represents The True Reality, Not External Aspects.

No Tyrant Need Fear Till Men Begin To Feel Confident In Each Other.

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.

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.

For As The Eyes Of Bats Are To The Blaze Of Day, So Is The Reason In Our Soul To The Things Which Are By Nature Most Evident Of All.

The So-called Pythagoreans, Who Were The First To Take Up Mathematics, Not Only Advanced This Subject, But Saturated With It, They Fancied That The Principles Of Mathematics Were The Principles Of All Things.

The Body Is At Its Best Between The Ages Of Thirty And Thirty-five.

Excellence Or Virtue Is A Settled Disposition Of The Mind That Determines Our Choice Of Actions And Emotions And Consists Essentially In Observing The Mean Relative To Us ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Which Depends On Excess And That Which Depends On Defect.

Men Are Swayed More By Fear Than By Reverence.

The Good Citizen Need Not Of Necessity Possess The Virtue Which Makes A Good Man.

To Give Away Money Is An Easy Matter And In Any Man's Power. But To Decide To Whom To Give It And How Large And When, And For What Purpose And How, Is Neither In Every Man's Power Nor An Easy Matter.

A Man Can Make Up His Mind Quickly When He Has Only A Little To Make Up.

The Soul Suffers When The Body Is Diseased Or Traumatized, While The Body Suffers When The Soul Is Ailing.

The Best Friend Is He That, When He Wishes A Person's Good, Wishes It For That Person's Own Sake.

When You Are Lonely, When You Feel Yourself An Alien In The World, Play Chess. This Will Raise Your Spirits And Be Your Counselor In War

There Is Simple Ignorance, Which Is The Source Of Lighter Offenses, And Double Ignorance, Which Is Accompanied By A Conceit Of Wisdom.

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

The End Is Included Among Goods Of The Soul, And Not Among 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.

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

Yes The Truth Is That Men's Ambition And Their Desire To Make Money Are Among The Most Frequent Causes Of Deliberate Acts Of Injustice.

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

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

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.

Those Who Merely Possess The Goods Of Fortune May Be Haughty And Insolent; . . . They Try To Imitate The Great-souled Man Without Being Really Like Him, And Only Copy Him In What They Can, Reproducing His Contempt For Others But Not His Virtuous Conduct. For The Great-souled Man Is Justified In Despising Other People - His Estimates Are Correct; But Most Proud Men Have No Good Ground For Their Pride.

... The Friendship Of Worthless People Has A Bad Effect (because They Take Part, Unstable As They Are, In Worthless Pursuits, And Actually Become Bad Through Each Other's Influence). But The Friendship Of The Good Is Good, And Increases In Goodness Because Of Their Association. They Seem Even To Become Better Men By Exercising Their Friendship And Improving Each Other; For The Traits That They Admire In Each Other Get Transferred To Themselves.

There Is A Cropping-time In The Races Of Men, As In The Fruits Of The Field; And Sometimes, If The Stock Be Good, There Springs Up For A Time A Succession Of Splendid Men; And Then Comes A Period Of Barrenness.

Excellence Is Never An Accident. It Is Always The Result Of High Intention, Sincere Effort, And Intelligent Execution; It Represents The Wise Choice Of Many Alternatives - Choice, Not Chance, Determines Your Destiny.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

To Die, And Thus Avoid Poverty Or Love, Or Anything Painful, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Rather Of A Coward; For It Is Cowardice To Avoid Trouble, And The Suicide Does Not Undergo Death Because It Is Honorable, But In Order To Avoid Evil.

A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

The State Comes Into Existence For The Sake Of Life And Continues To Exist For The Sake Of Good Life.

Concerning The Generation Of Animals Akin To Them, As Hornets And Wasps, The Facts In All Cases Are Similar To A Certain Extent, But Are Devoid Of The Extraordinary Features Which Characterize Bees; This We Should Expect, For They Have Nothing Divine About Them As The Bees Have.

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

The Hardest Victory Is The Victory Over Self.

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

Definition Of Tragedy: A Hero Destroyed By The Excess Of His Virtues

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.

In Inventing A Model We May Assume What We Wish, But Should Avoid Impossibilities.

Women Who Are With Child Should Be Careful Of Themselves; They Should Take Exercise And Have A Nourishing Diet. The First Of These Prescriptions The Legislator Will Easily Carry Into Effect By Requiring That They Should Take A Walk Daily To Some Temple, Where They Can Worship The Gods Who Preside Over Birth. Their Minds, However, Unlike Their Bodies, They Ought To Keep Quiet, For The Offspring Derive Their Natures From Their Mothers As Plants Do From Earth.

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

...for All Men Do Their Acts With A View To Achieving Something Which Is, In Their View, A Good.

Revolutions Are Not About Trifles, But Spring From Trifles.

Prosperity Makes Friends And Adversity Tries Them. A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies

Good Has Two Meanings: It Means That Which Is Good Absolutely And That Which Is Good For Somebody.

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

It Is The Active Exercise Of Our Faculties In Conformity With Virtue That Causes Happiness, And The Opposite Activities Its Opposite.

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

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.

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.

The Soul Is The Form Of The Body

The Business Of Every Art Is To Bring Something Into Existence, And The Practice Of An Art Involves The Study Of How To Bring Into Existence Something Which Is Capable Of Having Such An Existence And Has Its Efficient Cause In The Maker And Not In Itself.

It Is Through Wonder That Men Now Begin And Originally Began To Philosophize; Wondering In The First Place At Obvious Perplexities, And Then By Gradual Progression Raising Questions About The Greater Matters Too.

... The Good For Man Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, Or If There Are More Kinds Of Virtue Than One, In Accordance With The Best And Most Perfect Kind.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

If Every Tool, When Ordered, Or Even Of Its Own Accord, Could Do The Work That Befits It... Then There Would Be No Need Either Of Apprentices For The Master Workers Or Of Slaves For The Lords.

Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Characteristics

The Soul Becomes Prudent By Sitting And Being Quiet.

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

No Excellent Soul Is Exempt From A Mixture Of Madness.

There Is Nothing Strange In The Circle Being The Origin Of Any And Every Marvel.

Every Community Is An Association Of Some Kind And Every Community Is Established With A View To Some Good; For Everyone Always Acts In Order To Obtain That Which They Think Good. But, If All Communities Aim At Some Good, 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 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.

Democracy Arose From Men's Thinking That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely.

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

True Happiness Comes From Gaining Insight And Growing Into Your Best Possible Self. Otherwise All You're Having Is Immediate Gratification Pleasure, Which Is Fleeting And Doesn't Grow You As A Person.

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

...one Greek City State Had A Fundamental Law: Anyone Proposing Revisions To The Constitution Did So With A Noose Around His Neck. If His Proposal Lost He Was Instantly Hanged.

No Great Mind Has Ever Existed Without A Touch Of Madness.

He Overcomes A Stout Enemy Who Overcomes His Own Anger.

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.

Speeches Are Like Babies-easy To Conceive But Hard To Deliver.

Neither Should Men Study War With A View To The Enslavement Of Those Who Do Not Deserve To Be Enslaved; But First Of All They Should Provide Against Their Own Enslavement, And In The Second Place Obtain Empire For The Good Of The Governed, And Not For The Sake Of Exercising A General Despotism, And In The Third Place They Should Seek To Be Masters Only Over Those Who Deserve To Be Slaves.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because The True And The Just Are Naturally Superior To Their Opposites, So That, If Decisions Are Improperly Made, They Must Owe Their Defeat To Their Own Advocates; Which Is Reprehensible. Further, In Dealing With Certain Persons, Even If We Possessed The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, We Should Not Find It Easy To Persuade Them By The Employment Of Such Knowledge. For Scientific Discourse Is Concerned With Instruction, But In The Case Of Such Persons Instruction Is Impossible.

The Whole Is More Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

Logical Reasoning

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

It Is Not Easy For A Person To Do Any Great Harm When His Tenure Of Office Is Short, Whereas Long Possession Begets Tyranny.

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

All That One Gains By Falsehood Is, Not To Be Believed When He Speaks The Truth.

Plato Is My Friend, But Truth Is A Better Friend.

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.

The Male Has More Teeth Than The Female In Mankind, And Sheep And Goats, And Swine. This Has Not Been Observed In Other Animals. Those Persons Which Have The Greatest Number Of Teeth Are The Longest Lived; Those Which Have Them Widely Separated, Smaller, And More Scattered, Are Generally More Short Lived.

Since The Branch Of Philosophy On Which We Are At Present Engaged Differs From The Others In Not Being A Subject Of Merely Intellectual Interest — I Mean We Are Not Concerned To Know What Goodness Essentially Is, But How We Are To Become Good Men, For This Alone Gives The Study Its Practical Value — We Must Apply Our Minds To The Solution Of The Problems Of Conduct.

That The Equalization Of Property Exercises An Influence On Political Society Was Clearly Understood Even By Some Of The Old Legislators. Laws Were Made By Solon And Others Prohibiting An Individual From Possessing As Much Land As He Pleased.

Men Create Gods After Their Own Image, Not Only With Regard To Their Form But With Regard To Their Mode Of Life.

A Life Of Wealth And Many Belongings Is Only A Means To Happiness. Honor, Power, And Success Cannot Be Happiness Because They Depend On The Whims Of Others, And Happiness Should Be Self-contained, Complete In Itself.

When Couples Have Children In Excess, Let Abortion Be Procured Before Sense And Life Have Begun; What May Or May Not Be Lawfully Done In These Cases Depends On The Question Of Life And Sensation.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

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

Conscientious And Careful Physicians Allocate Causes Of Disease To Natural Laws, While The Ablest Scientists Go Back To Medicine For Their First Principles.

The Physician Himself, If Sick, Actually Calls In Another Physician, Knowing That He Cannot Reason Correctly If Required To Judge His Own Condition While Suffering.

The Line Between Lawful And Unlawful Abortion Will Be Marked By The Fact Of Having Sensation And Being Alive.

When You Have Thrown A Stone, You Cannot Afterwards Bring It Back Again, But Nevertheless You Are Responsible For Having Taken Up The Stone And Flung It, For The Origin Of The Act Was Within You. Similarly The Unjust And Profligate Might At The Outset Have Avoided Becoming So, And Therefore They Are So Voluntarily, Although When They Have Become Unjust And Profligate It Is No Longer Open To Them Not To Be So.

Plants, Again, Inasmuch As They Are Without Locomotion, Present No Great Variety In Their Heterogeneous Pacts. For, When The Functions Are But Few, Few Also Are The Organs Required To Effect Them. ... Animals, However, That Not Only Live But Perceive, Present A Great Multiformity Of Pacts, And This Diversity Is Greater In Some Animals Than In Others, Being Most Varied In Those To Whose Share Has Fallen Not Mere Life But Life Of High Degree. Now Such An Animal Is Man.

Since The Things We Do Determine The Character Of Life, No Blessed Person Can Become Unhappy. For He Will Never Do Those Things Which Are Hateful And Petty.

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Fitness Motivational

There Is Only One Condition In Which We Can Imagine Managers Not Needing Subordinates, And Masters Not Needing Slaves. This Condition Would Be That Each (inanimate) Instrument Could Do Its Own Work.

It Is Of Itself That The Divine Thought Thinks (since It Is The Most Excellent Of Things), And Its Thinking Is A Thinking On Thinking.

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.

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.

Either A Beast Or A God.

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

A Body In Motion Can Maintain This Motion Only If It Remains In Contact With A Mover.

Bodies In Motion

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

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

Some Believe It To Be Just Friends Wanting, As If To Be Healthy Enough To Wish Health.

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

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.

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

Remember That Time Slurs Over Everything, Let All Deeds Fade, Blurs All Writings And Kills All Memories. Exempt Are Only Those Which Dig Into The Hearts Of Men By Love.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

That Which Most Contributes To The Permanence Of Constitutions Is The Adaptation Of Education To The Form Of Government, And Yet In Our Own Day This Principle Is Universally Neglected. The Best Laws, Though Sanctioned By Every Citizen Of The State, Will Be Of No Avail Unless The Young Are Trained By Habit And Education In The Spirit Of The Constitution.

A Goal Gets Us Motivated,while A Good Habit Keeps Us Stay Motivated.

It Seems That Ambition Makes Most People Wish To Be Loved Rather Than To Love Others.

It [justice] Is Complete Virtue In The Fullest Sense, Because It Is The Active Exercise Of Complete Virtue; And It Is Complete Because Its Possessor Can Exercise It In Relation To Another Person, And Not Only By Himself.

...the Life Which Is Best For Men, Both Separately, As Individuals, And In The Mass, As States, Is The Life Which Has Virtue Sufficiently Supported By Material Resources To Facilitate Participation In The Actions That Virtue Calls For.

So Virtue Is A Purposive Disposition, Lying In A Mean That Is Relative To Us And Determined By A Rational Principle, And By That Which A Prudent Man Would Use To Determine It. It Is A Mean Between Two Kinds Of Vice, One Of Excess And The Other Of Deficiency.

We Assume Therefore That Moral Virtue Is The Quality Of Acting In The Best Way In Relation To Pleasures And Pains, And That Vice Is The Opposite.

Those That Know, Do. Those That Understand, Teach.

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.

Now, The Causes Being Four, It Is The Business Of The Student Of Nature To Know About Them All, And If He Refers His Problems Back To All Of Them, He Will Assign The "why" In The Way Proper To His Science-the Matter, The Form, The Mover, That For The Sake Of Which.

Suppose, Then, That All Men Were Sick Or Deranged, Save One Or Two Of Them Who Were Healthy And Of Right Mind. It Would Then Be The Latter Two Who Would Be Thought To Be Sick And Deranged And The Former Not!

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.

In The Many Forms Of Government Which Have Sprung Up There Has Always Been An Acknowledgement Of Justice And Proportionate Equality, Although Mankind Fail In Attaining Them, As Indeed I Have Already Explained. Democracy, For Example, Arises Out Of The Notion That Those Who Are Equal In Any Respect Are Equal In All Respects; Because Men Are Equally Free, They Claim To Be Absolutely Equal.

To Thales The Primary Question Was Not What Do We Know, But How Do We Know It.

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

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 Probable Is What Usually Happens.

Each Human Being Is Bred With A Unique Set Of Potentials That Yearn To Be Fulfilled As Surely As The Acorn Yearns To Become The Oak Within It.

Whatever We Learn To Do, We Learn By Actually Doing It; Men Come To Be Builders, For Instance, By Building, And Harp Players By Playing The Harp. In The Same Way, By Doing Just Acts We Come To Be Just; By Doing Self-controlled Acts, We Come To Be Self-controlled ; And By Doing Brave Acts, We Become Brave.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

Legislative Enactments Proceed From Men Carrying Their Views A Long Time Back; While Judicial Decisions Are Made Off Hand.

Men Acquire A Particular Quality By Constantly Acting In A Particular Way.

These, Then, Are The Four Kinds Of Royalty. First The Monarchy Of The Heroic Ages; This Was Exercised Over Voluntary Subjects, But Limited To Certain Functions; The King Was A General And A Judge, And Had The Control Of Religion The Second Is That Of The Barbarians, Which Is A Hereditary Despotic Government In Accordance With Law. A Third Is The Power Of The So-called Aesynmete Or Dictator; This Is An Elective Tyranny. The Fourth Is The Lacedaemonian, Which Is In Fact A Generalship, Hereditary And Perpetual.

A Man Is His Own Best Friend; Therefore He Ought To Love Himself Best.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

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.

Where Perception Is, There Also Are Pain And Pleasure, And Where These Are, There, Of Necessity, Is Desire.

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.

Gentleness Is The Ability To Bear Reproaches And Slights With Moderation, And Not To Embark On Revenge Quickly, And Not To Be Easily Provoked To Anger, But Be Free From Bitterness And Contentiousness, Having Tranquility And Stability In The Spirit.

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