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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.

-Aristotle

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Every Wicked Man Is

Aristotle

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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.

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Time Is The Measurable Unit Of Movement Concerning A Before And An After.

Time Management

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

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 Ridiculous Is Produced By Any Defect That Is Unattended By Pain, Or Fatal Consequences; Thus, An Ugly And Deformed Countenance Does Not Fail To Cause Laughter, If It Is Not Occasioned By Pain.

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

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.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

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

Evil Draws Men Together.

A Democracy Is A Government In The Hands Of Men Of Low Birth, No Property, And Vulgar Employments.

Whereas Happiness Is The Highest Good, Being A Realization And Perfect Practice Of Virtue, Which Some Can Attain, While Others Have Little Or None Of It, The Various Qualities Of Men Are Clearly The Reason Why There Are Various Kinds Of States And Many Forms Of Government; For 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.

No Notice Is Taken Of A Little Evil, But When It Increases It Strikes The Eye.

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.

It Has Been Handed Down In Mythical Form From Earliest Times To Posterity, That There Are Gods, And That The Divine (deity) Compasses All Nature. All Beside This Has Been Added, After The Mythical Style, For The Purpose Of Persuading The Multitude, And For The Interests Of The Laws, And The Advantage Of The State.

It Is A Part Of Probability That Many Improbable Things Will Happen.

The Senses Are Gateways To The Intelligence. There Is Nothing In The Intelligence Which Did Not First Pass Through The Senses.

All Art, All Education, Can Be Merely A Supplement To Nature.

There Are Some Jobs In Which It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Virtuous.

As Our Acts Vary, Our Habits Will Follow In Their Course.

Nor Was Civil Society Founded Merely To Preserve The Lives Of Its Members; But That They Might Live Well: For Otherwise A State Might Be Composed Of Slaves, Or The Animal Creation... Nor Is It An Alliance Mutually To Defend Each Other From Injuries, Or For A Commercial Intercourse. But Whosoever Endeavors To Establish Wholesome Laws In A State, Attends To The Virtues And Vices Of Each Individual Who Composes It; From Whence It Is Evident, That The First Care Of Him Who Would Found A City, Truly Deserving That Name, And Not Nominally So, Must Be To Have His Citizens Virtuous.

The Virtue Of Justice Consists In Moderation, As Regulated By Wisdom.

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

One Would Have Thought That It Was Even More Necessary To Limit Population Than Property; And That The Limit Should Be Fixed By Calculating The Chances Of Mortality In The Children, And Of Sterility In Married Persons. The Neglect Of This Subject, Which In Existing States Is So Common, Is A Never-failing Cause Of Poverty Among The Citizens; And Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

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

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.

It Belongs To Small-mindedness To Be Unable To Bear Either Honor Or Dishonor, Either Good Fortune Or Bad, But To Be Filled With Conceit When Honored And Puffed Up By Trifling Good Fortune, And To Be Unable To Bear Even The Smallest Dishonor And To Deem Any Chance Failure A Great Misfortune, And To Be Distressed And Annonyed At Everything. Moreover The Small-minded Man Is The Sort Of Person To Call All Slights An Insult And Dishonor, Even Those That Are Due To Ignorance Or Forgetfulness. Small-mindedness Is Accompanied By Pettiness, Querulousness, Pessimism And Self-abasement.

The Soul Becomes Prudent By Sitting And Being Quiet.

All Men Agree That A Just Distribution Must Be According To Merit In Some Sense; They Do Not All Specify The Same Sort Of Merit, But Democrats Identify It With Freemen, Supporters Of Oligarchy With Wealth (or Noble Birth), And Supporters Of Aristocracy With Excellence.

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

There Are Branches Of Learning And Education Which We Must Study Merely With A View To Leisure Spent In Intellectual Activity, And These Are To Be Valued For Their Own Sake; Whereas Those Kinds Of Knowledge Which Are Useful In Business Are To Be Deemed Necessary, And Exist For The Sake Of Other Things.

All Learning Is Derived From Things Previously Known.

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

. .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.

Happiness Comes From Theperfect Practice Of Virtue.

It Is Well To Be Up Before Daybreak, For Such Habits Contribute To Health, Wealth, And Wisdom.

That Education Should Be Regulated By Law And Should Be An Affair Of State Is Not To Be Denied, But What Should Be The Character Of This Public Education, And How Young Persons Should Be Educated, Are Questions Which Remain To Be Considered. As Things Are, There Is Disagreement About The Subjects. For Mankind Are By No Means Agreed About The Things To Be Taught, Whether We Look To Virtue Or The Best Life. Neither Is It Clear Whether Education Is More Concerned With Intellectual Or With Moral Virtue.

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

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

Demonstration Is Also Something Necessary, Because A Demonstration Cannot Go Otherwise Than It Does, ... And The Cause Of This Lies With The Primary Premises/principles.

Words Of Wisdom

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

A Thing Chosen Always As An End And Never As A Means We Call Absolutely Final. Now Happiness Above All Else Appears To Be Absolutely Final In This Sense, Since We Always Choose It For Its Own Sake And Never As A Means To Something Else.

Again, It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways (for Evil Belongs To The Class Of The Unlimited And Good To That Of The Limited), 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); For These Reasons Also, Then, Excess And Defect Are Characteristic Of Vice, And The Mean Of Virtue; For Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

A Right Election Can Only Be Made By Those Who Have Knowledge.

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

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

In Part, Art Completes What Nature Cannot Elaborate; And In Part It Imitates Nature.

Everything Is Done With A Goal, And That Goal Is "good."

Meaning Of Life

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

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

The Happy Life Is Thought To Be One Of Excellence; Now An Excellent Life Requires Exertion, And Does Not Consist In Amusement.

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.

Hippodamus, Son Of Euryphon, A Native Of Miletus, Invented The Art Of Planning And Laid Out The Street Plan Of Piraeus.

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.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

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

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.

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

We Are Not Angry With People We Fear Or Respect, As Long As We Fear Or Respect Them; You Cannot Be Afraid Of A Person And Also At The Same Time Angry With Him.

Happiness Does Not Lie In Amusement; It Would Be Strange If One Were To Take Trouble And Suffer Hardship All One's Life In Order To Amuse Oneself.

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.

No One Will Dare Maintain That It Is Better To Do Injustice Than To Bear It.

The Man Who Is Content To Live Alone Is Either A Beast Or A God.

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

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

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

If Everything When It Occupies An Equal Space Is At Rest, And If That Which Is In Locomotion Is Always Occupying Such A Space At Any Moment, The Flying Arrow Is Therefore Motionless.

To Write Well, Express Yourself Like The Common People, But Think Like A Wise Man.

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

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

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

Sacrifice To God

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

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

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

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

Happiness Lies In Virtuous Activity, And Perfect Happiness Lies In The Best Activity, Which Is Contemplative

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

Error Is Multiform (for Evil Is A Form Of The Unlimited, As In The Old Pythagorean Imagery, And Good Of The Limited), Whereas Success Is Possible In One Way Only (which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed - Easy To Miss The Target And Difficult To Hit It); So This Is Another Reason Why Excess And Deficiency Are A Mark Of Vice, And Observance Of The Mean A Mark Of Virtue: Goodness Is Simple, Badness Is Manifold.

Now All Orators Effect Their Demonstrative Proofs By Allegation Either Of Enthymems Or Examples, And, Besides These, In No Other Way Whatever.

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

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

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

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

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

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

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.

Time Crumbles Things; Everything Grows Old Under The Power Of Time And Is Forgotten Through The Lapse Of Time.

One Swallow Does Not Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day.

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.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions, Self-controlled By Exercising Self-control, And Courageous By Performing Acts Of Courage.

The One Exclusive Sign Of Thorough Knowledge Is The Power Of Teaching.

[this Element], The Seat Of The Appetites And Of Desire In General, Does In A Sense Participate In Principle, As Being Amenable And Obedient To It

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

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

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

Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?

Beauty Depends On Size As Well As Symmetry. No Very Small Animal Can Be Beautiful, For Looking At It Takes So Small A Portion Of Time That The Impression Of It Will Be Confused. Nor Can Any Very Large One, For A Whole View Of It Cannot Be Had At Once, And So There Will Be No Unity And Completeness.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

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

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

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.

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.

All Teaching And All Intellectual Learning Come About From Already Existing Knowledge.

We Are What We Continually Do.

Character Is Made By Many Acts; It May Be Lost By A Single One.

Either A Beast Or A God.

The Soul Has Two Parts, One Rational And The Other Irrational. Let Us Now Similarly Divide The Rational Part, And Let It Be Assumed That There Are Two Rational Faculties, One Whereby We Contemplate Those Things Whose First Principles Are Invariable, And One Whereby We Contemplate Those Things Which Admit Of Variation.

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

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

. . . Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Of Mere Companionship.

Happiness Belongs To The Self Sufficient.

Happiness Is Self-connectedness.

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

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.

If What Was Said In The Ethics Is True, That The Happy Life Is The Life According To Virtue Lived Without Impediment, And That Virtue Is A Mean, Then The Life Which Is In A Mean, And In A Mean Attainable By Every One, Must Be The Best. And The Same Principles Of Virtue And Vice Are Characteristic Of Cities And Of Constitutions; For The Constitution Is In A Figure The Life Of The City.

Friendship Is Communion.

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."

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

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.

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

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor; It Is The One Thing That Cannot Be Learned From Others; And It Is Also A Sign Of Genius, Since A Good Metaphor Implies An Intuitive Perception Of The Similarity Of The Dissimilar.

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

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.

Happiness Seems To Require A Modicum Of External Prosperity.

A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

Equality Consists In The Same Treatment Of Similar Persons.

Equal Treatment

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 . .

The Pleasures Arising From Thinking And Learning Will Make Us Think And Learn All The More. 1153a 23

Nicomachean Ethics

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.

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

Music Has A Power Of Forming The Character, And Should Therefore Be Introduced Into The Education Of The Young.

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

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

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.

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.

The Guest Will Judge Better Of A Feast Than The Cook

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

The Ultimate End...is Not Knowledge, But Action. To Be Half Right On Time May Be More Important Than To Obtain The Whole Truth Too Late.

It Is Easy To Perform A Good Action, But Not Easy To Acquire A Settled Habit Of Performing Such Actions.

There Are, Then, Three States Of Mind ... Two Vices--that Of Excess, And That Of Defect; And One Virtue--the Mean; And All These Are In A Certain Sense Opposed To One Another; For The Extremes Are Not Only Opposed To The Mean, But Also To One Another; And The Mean Is Opposed To The Extremes.

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

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

It Is Not Sufficient To Know What One Ought To Say, But One Must Also Know How To Say It.

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

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

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

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

...we Are All Inclined To ... Direct Our Inquiry Not By The Matter Itself, But By The Views Of Our Opponents; And, Even When Interrogating Oneself, One Pushes The Inquiry Only To The Point At Which One Can No Longer Offer Any Opposition. Hence A Good Inquirer Will Be One Who Is Ready In Bringing Forward The Objections Proper To The Genus, And That He Will Be When He Has Gained An Understanding Of The Differences.

When There Is No Middle Class, And The Poor Greatly Exceed In Number, Troubles Arise, And The State Soon Comes To An End.

It Is In Justice That The Ordering Of Society Is Centered.

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

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.

He Who Is Unable To Live In Society, Or Who Has No Need Because He Is Sufficient For Himself, Must Be Either A Beast Or A God.

A Government Which Is Composed Of The Middle Class More Nearly Approximates To Democracy Than To Oligarchy, And Is The Safest Of The Imperfect Forms Of Government.

That Body Is Heavier Than Another Which, In An Equal Bulk, Moves Downward Quicker.

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

Money Was Established For Exchange, But Interest Causes It To Be Reproduced By Itself. Therefore This Way Of Earning Money Is Greatly In Conflict With The Natural Law.

Greed Has No Boundaries

... The Science We Are After Is Not About Mathematicals Either None Of Them, You See, Is Separable.

Words Of Wisdom

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.

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.

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.

For Nature By The Same Cause, Provided It Remain In The Same Condition, Always Produces The Same Effect, So That Either Coming-to-be Or Passing-away Will Always Result.

In The Works Of Nature, Purpose, Not Accident, Is The Main Thing.

Inferiors Revolt In Order That They May Be Equal, And Equals That They May Be Superior. Such Is The State Of Mind Which Creates Revolutions.

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

[i]t Is Rather The Case That We Desire Something Because We Believe It To Be Good Than That We Believe A Thing To Be Good Because We Desire It. It Is The Thought That Starts Things Off.

The Duty Of Rhetoric Is To Deal With Such Matters As We Deliberate Upon Without Arts Or Systems To Guide Us, In The Hearing Of Persons Who Cannot Take In At A Glance A Complicated Argument Or Follow A Long Chain Of Reasoning.

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

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.

Thus Then A Single Harmony Orders The Composition Of The Whole...by The Mingling Of The Most Contrary Principles.

Worthless Persons Appointed To Have Supreme Control Of Weighty Affairs Do A Lot Of Damage.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do... Excellence, Therefore, Isn't Just An Act, But A Habit And Life Isn't Just A Series Of Events, But An Ongoing Process Of Self-definition.

He Overcomes A Stout Enemy Who Overcomes His Own Anger.

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 Soul Is The Cause Or Source Of The Living Body. The Terms Cause And Source Have Many Senses. But The Soul Is The Cause Of Its Body Alike In All Three Senses Which We Explicitly Recognize. It Is (a) The Source Or Origin Of Movement, It Is (b) The End, It Is (c) The Essence Of The Whole Living Body.

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

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

He Then Alone Will Strictly Be Called Brave Who Is Fearless Of A Noble Death, And Of All Such Chances As Come Upon Us With Sudden Death In Their Train.

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.

While Fiction Is Often Impossible, It Should Not Be Implausible.

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

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

Poetry Is Finer And More Philosophical Than History; For Poetry Expresses The Universal, And History Only The Particular.

For Contemplation Is Both The Highest Form Of Activity (since The Intellect Is The Highest Thing In Us, And The Objects That It Apprehends Are The Highest Things That Can Be Known), And Also It Is The Most Continuous, Because We Are More Capable Of Continuous Contemplation Than We Are Of Any Practical Activity.

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

The Happy Life Is Regarded As A Life In Conformity With Virtue. It Is A Life Which Involves Effort And Is Not Spent In Amusement.

Nature Makes Nothing Incomplete, And Nothing In Vain.

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

The Final Cause, Then, Produces Motion Through Being Loved.

Comedy Aims At Representing Men As Worse, Tragedy As Better Than In Actual Life.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

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

We Should Aim Rather At Leveling Down Our Desires Than Leveling Up Our Means.

Democracy 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.

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