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Even If You Must Have Regard To Wealth, In Order To Secure Leisure, Yet It Is Surely A Bad Thing That The Greatest Offices, Such As Those Of Kings And Generals, Should Be Bought. The Law Which Allows This Abuse Makes Wealth Of More Account Than Virtue, And The Whole State Becomes Avaricious.

-Aristotle

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Even If You Must

Aristotle

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Even If You Must Have Regard To Wealth, In Order To Secure Leisure, Yet It Is Surely A Bad Thing That The Greatest Offices, Such As Those Of Kings And Generals, Should Be Bought. The Law Which Allows This Abuse Makes Wealth Of More Account Than Virtue, And The Whole State Becomes Avaricious.

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In All Well-attempered Governments There Is Nothing Which Should Be More Jealously Maintained Than The Spirit Of Obedience To Law, More Especially In Small Matters; For Transgression Creeps In Unperceived And At Last Ruins The State, Just As The Constant Recurrence Of Small Expenses In Time Eats Up A Fortune.

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.

All Food Must Be Capable Of Being Digested, And That What Produces Digestion Is Warmth; That Is Why Everything That Has Soul In It Possesses Warmth.

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

We Must No More Ask Whether The Soul And Body Are One Than Ask Whether The Wax And The Figure Impressed On It Are One.

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.

The Error Of Socrates Must Be Attributed To The False Notion Of Unity From Which He Starts. Unity There Should Be, Both Of The Family And Of The State, But In Some Respects Only. For There Is A Point At Which A State May Attain Such A Degree Of Unity As To Be No Longer A State, Or At Which, Without Actually Ceasing To Exist, It Will Become An Inferior State, Like Harmony Passing Into Unison, Or Rhythm Which Has Been Reduced To A Single Foot. The State, As I Was Saying, Is A Plurality Which Should Be United And Made Into A Community By Education

Plato Is Dear To Me, But Dearer Still Is Truth.

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

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

Only An Armed People Can Be Truly Free. Only An Unarmed People Can Ever Be Enslaved.

Happiness Is The Utilization Of One's Talents Along Lines Of Excellence.

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

Happiness Is The Reward Of Virtue.

It Is Just That We Should Be Grateful, Not Only To Those With Whose Views We May Agree, But Also To Those Who Have Expressed More Superficial Views; For These Also Contributed Something, By Developing Before Us The Powers Of Thought.

If Things Do Not Turn Out As We Wish, We Should Wish For Them As They Turn Out.

Men Are Marked From The Moment Of Birth To Rule Or Be Ruled.

So, If We Must Give A General Formula Applicable To All Kinds Of Soul, We Must Describe It As The First Actuality [entelechy] Of Anatural Organized Body.

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

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

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.

To Enjoy The Things We Ought And To Hate The Things We Ought Has The Greatest Bearing On Excellence Of Character.

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

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.)

For Well-being And Health, Again, The Homestead Should Be Airy In Summer, And Sunny In Winter. A Homestead Possessing These Qualities Would Be Longer Than It Is Deep; And Its Main Front Would Face The South.

Men Pay Most Attention To What Is Their Own: They Care Less For What Is Common; Or, At Any Rate, They Care For It Only To The Extent To Which Each Is Individually Concerned.

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Anyone 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. But The Principle Of Responsibility Secures That Which Is The Greatest Good In States; The Right Persons Rule And Are Prevented From Doing Wrong, And The People Have Their Due. It Is Evident That This Is The Best Kind Of Democracy, And Why? Because The People Are Drawn From A Certain Class.

The True Forms Of Government, Therefore, Are Those In Which The One, Or The Few, Or The Many, Govern With A View To The Common Interest; But Governments Which Rule With A View To The Private Interest, Whether Of The One Or Of The Few, Or Of The Many, Are Perversions. For The Members Of A State, If They Are Truly Citizens, Ought To Participate In Its Advantages.

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

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.

What Is The Highest Good In All Matters Of Action? To The Name, There Is Almost Complete Agreement; For Uneducated And Educated Alike Call It Happiness, And Make Happiness Identical With The Good Life And Successful Living. They Disagree, However, About The Meaning Of Happiness.

The Ideal Man Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy.

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.

Friendship Is A Thing Most Necessary To Life, Since Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though Possessed Of All Other Advantages.

Now If There Is Any Gift Of The Gods To Men, It Is Reasonable That Happiness Should Be God-given, And Most Surely God-given Of All Human Things Inasmuch As It Is The Best. But This Question Would Perhaps Be More Appropriate To Another Inquiry; Happiness Seems, However, Even If It Is Not God-sent But Comes As A Result Of Virtue And Some Process Of Learning And Training, To Be Among The Most God-like Things; For That Which Is The Prize And End Of Virtue Seems To Be The Best Thing In The World, And Something God-like And Blessed.

For Though We Love Both The Truth And Our Friends, Piety Requires Us To Honor The Truth First.

...happiness Is An Activity And A Complete Utilization Of Virtue, Not Conditionally But Absolutely.

Men Must Be Able To Engage In Business And Go To War, But Leisure And Peace Are Better; They Must Do What Is Necessary And Indeed What Is Useful, But What Is Honorable Is Better. On Such Principles Children And Persons Of Every Age Which Requires Education Should Be Trained.

We Must Become Just Be Doing Just Acts.

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

The Young Are Heated By Nature As Drunken Men By Wine.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

Hippocrates Is An Excellent Geometer But A Complete Fool In Everyday Affairs.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A Line Is Not Made Up Of Points. ... In The Same Way, Time Is Not Made Up Parts Considered As Indivisible 'nows.' Part Of Aristotle's Reply To Zeno's Paradox Concerning Continuity.

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

Whether If Soul Did Not Exist Time Would Exist Or Not, Is A Question That May Fairly Be Asked; For If There Cannot Be Someone To Count There Cannot Be Anything That Can Be Counted, So That Evidently There Cannot Be Number; For Number Is Either What Has Been, Or What Can Be, Counted.

Those Whose Days Are Consumed In The Low Pursuits Of Avarice, Or The Gaudy Frivolties Of Fashion, Unobservant Of Nature's Lovelinessof Demarcation, Nor On Which Side Thereof An Intermediate Form Should Lie.

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.

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.

We Should Behave To Our Friends As We Would Wish Our Friends Behave To Us

The Proof That The State Is A Creation Of Nature And Prior To The Individual Is That The Individual, When Isolated, Is Not Self-sufficing.

Selfishness Doesn't Consist In A Love To Yourself, But In A Big Degree Of Such Love.

Metaphysics Is Universal And Is Exclusively Concerned With Primary Substance. ... And Here We Will Have The Science To Study That Which Is, Both In Its Essence And In The Properties Which It Has.

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

People Of Superior Refinement And Of Active Disposition Identify Happiness With Honour; For This Is Roughly Speaking, The End Of Political Life.

No Science Ever Defends Its First Principles.

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

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

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

If One Way Be Better Than Another, That You May Be Sure Is Nature's Way.

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.

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.

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.

Happiness Involves Engagement In Activities That Promote One's Highest Potentials.

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

It Is Clear That There Is Some Difference Between Ends: Some Ends Are Energeia [energy], While Others Are Products Which Are Additional To The Energeia.

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

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.

It Is Their Character Indeed That Makes People Who They Are. But It Is By Reason Of Their Actions That They Are Happy Or The Reverse.

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 . .

A Gentleman Is Not Disturbed By Anything

So That The Lover Of Myths, Which Are A Compact Of Wonders, Is By The Same Token A Lover Of Wisdom.

The Man With A Host Of Friends Who Slaps On The Back Everybody He Meets Is Regarded As The Friend Of Nobody.

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.

Something Is Infinite If, Taking It Quantity By Quantity, We Can Always Take Something Outside.

The Truly Good And Wise Man Will Bear All Kinds Of Fortune In A Seemly Way, And Will Always Act In The Noblest Manner That The Circumstances Allow.

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.

The Excellence Of A Thing Is Related To Its Proper Function.

Man By Nature Desires To Know.

We, On The Other Hand, Must Take For Granted That The Things That Exist By Nature Are, Either All Or Some Of Them, In Motion.

People Become House Builders Through Building Houses, Harp Players Through Playing The Harp. We Grow To Be Just By Doing Things Which Are Just.

Building Houses

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

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

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

Men Are Swayed More By Fear Than By Reverence.

We Cannot ... Prove Geometrical Truths By Arithmetic.

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

Greed Has No Boundaries

Evils Draw Men Together.

Nature Makes Nothing Incomplete, And Nothing In Vain.

Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Rest Satisfied With The Degree Of Precision Which The Nature Of The Subject Admits And Not To Seek Exactness Where Only An Approximation Is Possible.

Friends Enhance Our Ability To Think And Act.

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

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

The Antidote For Fifty Enemies Is One Friend.

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

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

It Is Homer Who Has Chiefly Taught Other Poets The Art Of Telling Lies Skillfully.

Art Is A Higher Type Of Knowledge Than Experience.

A Friend Is A Second Self, So That Our Consciousness Of A Friend's Existence...makes Us More Fully Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

The Soul Never Thinks Without A Picture.

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

In A Word, Acts Of Any Kind Produce Habits Or Characters Of The Same Kind. Hence We Ought To Make Sure That Our Acts Are Of A Certain Kind; For The Resulting Character Varies As They Vary. It Makes No Small Difference, Therefore, Whether A Man Be Trained In His Youth Up In This Way Or That, But A Great Difference, Or Rather All The Difference.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

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

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

One Cannot Say Of Something That It Is And That It Is Not In The Same Respect At The Same Time.

Quid Quid Movetur Ab Alio Movetur"(nothing Moves Without Having Been Moved).

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.

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

To Learn Is A Natural Pleasure, Not Confined To Philosophers, But Common To All Men.

Since We Think We Understand When We Know The Explanation, And There Are Four Types Of Explanation (one, What It Is To Be A Thing; One, That If Certain Things Hold It Is Necessary That This Does; Another, What Initiated The Change; And Fourth, The Aim), All These Are Proved Through The Middle Term.

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

Rightness In Our Choice Of An End Is Secured By [moral] Virtue.

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.

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

The Beauty Of The Soul Shines Out When A Man Bears With Composure One Heavy Mischance After Another, Not Because He Does Not Feel Them, But Because He Is A Man Of High And Heroic Temper.

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.

Not Every Action Or Emotion However Admits Of The Observance Of A Due Mean. Indeed The Very Names Of Some Directly Imply Evil, For Instance Malice, Shamelessness, Envy, And, Of Actions, Adultery, Theft, Murder. All These And Similar Actions And Feelings Are Blamed As Being Bad In Themselves; It Is Not The Excess Or Deficiency Of Them That We Blame. It Is Impossible Therefore Ever To Go Right In Regard To Them - One Must Always Be Wrong.

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.

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

A Sense Is What Has The Power Of Receiving Into Itself The Sensible Forms Of Things Without The Matter, In The Way In Which A Piece Of Wax Takes On The Impress Of A Signet-ring Without The Iron Or Gold.

At The Intersection Where Your Gifts, Talents, And Abilities Meet A Human Need; Therein You Will Discover Your Purpose

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

Happiness Is Something Final And Complete In Itself, As Being The Aim And End Of All Practical Activities Whatever .... Happiness Then We Define As The Active Exercise Of The Mind In Conformity With Perfect Goodness Or Virtue.

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

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

In [the Soul] One Part Naturally Rules, And The Other Is Subject, And The Virtue Of The Ruler We Maintain To Be Different From That Of The Subject; The One Being The Virtue Of The Rational, And The Other Of The Irrational Part. Now, It Is Obvious That The Same Principle Applies Generally, And Therefore Almost All Things Rule And Are Ruled According To Nature.

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

Bodies In Motion

A Person's Life Persuades Better Than His Word.

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

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

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

To Appreciate The Beauty Of A Snow Flake, It Is Necessary To Stand Out In The Cold.

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

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

It Would Then Be Most Admirably Adapted To The Purposes Of Justice, If Laws Properly Enacted Were, As Far As Circumstances Admitted, Of Themselves To Mark Out All Cases, And To Abandon As Few As Possible To The Discretion Of The Judge.

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

Virtue Makes Us Aim At The Right End, And Practical Wisdom Makes Us Take The Right Means.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

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

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

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

It Must Not Be Supposed That Happiness Will Demand Many Or Great Possessions; For Self-sufficiency Does Not Depend On Excessive Abundance, Nor Does Moral Conduct, And It Is Possible To Perform Noble Deeds Even Without Being Ruler Of Land And Sea: One Can Do Virtuous Acts With Quite Moderate Resources. This May Be Clearly Observed In Experience: Private Citizens Do Not Seem To Be Less But More Given To Doing Virtuous Actions Than Princes And Potentates. It Is Sufficient Then If Moderate Resources Are Forthcoming; For A Life Of Virtuous Activity Will Be Essentially A Happy Life.

The Student Of Politics Therefore As Well As The Psychologist Must Study The Nature Of The Soul.

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.

We Ought Not To Listen To Those Who Exhort Us, Because We Are Human, To Think Of Human Things....we Ought Rather To Take On Immortality As Much As Possible, And Do All That We Can To Live In Accordance With The Highest Element Within Us; For Even If Its Bulk Is Small, In Its Power And Value It Far Exceeds Everything.

He Who Can Be, And Therefore Is, Another's, And He Who Participates In Reason Enough To Apprehend, But Not To Have, Is A Slave By Nature.

Philosophy Can Make People Sick.

Laws, When Good, Should Be Supreme; And That The Magistrate Or Magistrates Should Regulate Those Matters Only On Which The Laws Are Unable To Speak With Precision Owing To The Difficulty Of Any General Principle Embracing All Particulars.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

Money Originated With Royalty And Slavery, It Has Nothing To Do With Democracy Or The Struggle Of The Empoverished Enslaved Majority.

Rhetoric May Be Defined As The Faculty Of Observing In Any Given Case The Available Means Of Persuasion.

Phronimos, Possessing Practical Wisdom . But The Only Virtue Special To A Ruler Is Practical Wisdom; All The Others Must Be Possessed, So It Seems, Both By Rulers And Ruled. The Virtue Of A Person Being Ruled Is Not Practical Wisdom But Correct Opinion; He Is Rather Like A Person Who Makes The Pipes, While The Ruler Is The One Who Can Play Them.

God And Nature Create Nothing That Does Not Fulfill A Purpose

And Inasmuch As The Great-souled Man Deserves Most, He Must Be The Best Of Men; For The Better A Man Is The More He Deserves, And He That Is Best Deserves Most. Therefore The Truly Great-souled Man Must Be A Good Man. Indeed Greatness In Each Of The Virtues Would Seem To Go With Greatness Of Soul.

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.

Opinion Involves Belief (for Without Belief In What We Opine We Cannot Have An Opinion), And In The Brutes Though We Often Find Imagination We Never Find Belief.

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

If Purpose, Then, Is Inherent In Art, So Is It In Nature Also. The Best Illustration Is The Case Of A Man Being His Own Physician, For Nature Is Like That - Agent And Patient At Once.

To Leave The Number Of Births Unrestricted, As Is Done In Most States, Inevitably Causes Poverty Among The Citizens, And Poverty Produces Crime And Faction.

The Educated Differ From The Uneducated As Much As The Living From The Dead.

The Sun, Moving As It Does, Sets Up Processes Of Change And Becoming And Decay, And By Its Agency The Finest And Sweetest Water Is Every Day Carried Up And Is Dissolved Into Vapour And Rises To The Upper Region, Where It Is Condensed Again By The Cold And So Returns To The Earth. This, As We Have Said Before, Is The Regular Course Of Nature.

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.

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

As To Adultery, Let It Be Held Disgraceful, In General, For Any Man Or Woman To Be Found In Any Way Unfaithful When They Are Married, And Called Husband And Wife. If During The Time Of Bearing Children Anything Of The Sort Occur, Let The Guilty Person Be Punished With A Loss Of Privileges In Proportion To The Offense.

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

The Life Of The Intellect Is The Best And Pleasantest For Man, Because The Intellect More Than Anything Else Is The Man. Thus It Will Be The Happiest Life As Well.

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.

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

If There Is Any Kind Of Animal Which Is Female And Has No Male Separate From It, It Is Possible That This May Generate A Young One From Itself. No Instance Of This Worthy Of Any Credit Has Been Observed Up To The Present At Any Rate, But One Case In The Class Of Fishes Makes Us Hesitate. No Male Of The So-called Erythrinus Has Ever Yet Been Seen, But Females, And Specimens Full Of Roe, Have Been Seen. Of This, However, We Have As Yet No Proof Worthy Of Credit.

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.

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.

The Life Of Children, As Much As That Of Intemperate Men, Is Wholly Governed By Their Desires.

. .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.

If Then, As We Say, Good Craftsmen Look To The Mean As They Work, And If Virtue, Like Nature, Is More Accurate And Better Than Any Form Of Art, It Will Follow That Virtue Has The Quality Of Hitting The Mean. I Refer To Moral Virtue [not Intellectual], For This Is Concerned With Emotions And Actions, In Which One Can Have Excess Or Deficiency Or A Due Mean.

But If Nothing But Soul, Or In Soul Mind, Is Qualified To Count, It Is Impossible For There To Be Time Unless There Is Soul, But Only That Of Which Time Is An Attribute, I.e. If Change Can Exist Without Soul.

Happiness Is The Highest Good

Anybody Can Become Angry - That Is Easy, But To Be Angry With The Right Person And To The Right Degree And At The Right Time And For The Right Purpose, And In The Right Way - That Is Not Within Everybody's Power And Is Not Easy.

The Generality Of Men Are Naturally Apt To Be Swayed By Fear Rather Than Reverence, And To Refrain From Evil Rather Because Of The Punishment That It Brings Than Because Of Its Own Foulness.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

The Beginning Of Reform Is Not So Much To Equalize Property As To Train The Noble Sort Of Natures Not To Desire More, And To Prevent The Lower From Getting More.

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.

Those That Deem Politics Beneath Their Dignity Are Doomed To Be Governed By Those Of Lesser Talents.

How Many A Dispute Could Have Been Deflated Into A Single Paragraph If The Disputants Had Dared To Define Their Terms

For Imagining Lies Within Our Power Whenever We Wish . . . But In Forming Opinons We Are Not Free . . .

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

For Just As For A Flute-player, A Sculptor, Or An Artist, And, In General, For All Things That Have A Function Or Activity, The Good And The Well Is Thought To Reside In The Function, So Would It Seem To Be For Man, If He Has A Function.

The Young Are Permanently In A State Resembling Intoxication.

The Most Perfect Political Community Is One In Which The Middle Class Is In Control, And Outnumbers Both Of The Other Classes.

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

Words Of Wisdom

It Is Not Once Nor Twice But Times Without Number That The Same Ideas Make Their Appearance In The World.

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Richard Schickel

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