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

-Aristotle

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Excellence Is An Art

Aristotle

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

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It Is No Part Of A Physician's Business To Use Either Persuasion Or Compulsion Upon The Patients.

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

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

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.

Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

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

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.

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.

People Never Know Each Other Until They Have Eaten A Certain Amount Of Salt Together.

Men Are Divided Between Those Who Are As Thrifty As If They Would Live Forever, And Those Who Are As Extravagant As If They Were Going To Die The Next Day.

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

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

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

Good Moral Character Is Not Something That We Can Achieve On Our Own. We Need A Culture That Supports The Conditions Under Which Self-love And Friendship Flourish.

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

Between Friends There Is No Need Of Justice.

The Man Who Confers A Favour Would Rather Not Be Repaid In The Same Coin.

For The More Limited, If Adequate, Is Always Preferable.

God Has Many Names, Though He Is Only One Being.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

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

Important Relationships

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

Soul And Body, I Suggest React Sympathetically Upon Each Other. A Change In The State Of The Soul Produces A Change In The Shape Of The Body And Conversely, A Change In The Shape Of The Body Produces A Change In The State Of The Soul.

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.

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.

With The Truth, All Given Facts Harmonize; But With What Is False, The Truth Soon Hits A Wrong Note.

The Law Does Not Expressly Permit Suicide, And What It Does Not Permit It Forbids.

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

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

[the Virtues] Cannot Exist Without Prudence. A Proof Of This Is That Everyone, Even At The Present Day, In Defining Virtue, After Saying What Disposition It Is [i.e. Moral Virtue] And Specifying The Things With Which It Is Concerned, Adds That It Is A Disposition Determined By The Right Principle; And The Right Principle Is The Principle Determined By Prudence.

Excellence, Then, Is A State Concerned With Choice, Lying In A Mean, Relative To Us, This Being Determined By Reason And In The Way In Which The Man Of Practical Wisdom Would Determine It.

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.

It Is Unbecoming For Young Men To Utter Maxims.

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.

Perhaps Here We Have A Clue To The Reason Why Royal Rule Used To Exist Formerly, Namely The Difficulty Of Finding Enough Men Of Outstanding Virtue.

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

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

Education Is An Ornament In Prosperity And A Refuge In Adversity.

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

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

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.

In Painting, The Most Brilliant Colors, Spread At Random And Without Design, Will Give Far Less Pleasure Than The Simplest Outline Of A Figure.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

... 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.

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

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.

The Soul Never Thinks Without A Picture.

The Self-indulgent Man Craves For All Pleasant Things... And Is Led By His Appetite To Choose These At The Cost Of Everything Else.

Either A Beast Or A God.

Some Vices Miss What Is Right Because They Are Deficient, Others Because They Are Excessive, In Feelings Or In Actions, While Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean.

Excellence Is Not An Art. It Is The Habit Of Practice.

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

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.

Now It Is Evident That The Form Of Government Is Best In Which Every Man, Whoever He Is, Can Act Best And Live Happily.

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

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

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge.

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.

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.

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

First, Have A Definite, Clear Practical Ideal; A Goal, An Objective. Second, Have The Necessary Means To Achieve Your Ends; Wisdom, Money, Materials, And Methods. Third, Adjust All Your Means To That End.

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

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

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!

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

Man By Nature Desires To Know.

...perhaps There Is Some Element Of Good Even In The Simple Act Of Living, So Long As The Evils Of Existence Do Not Preponderate Too Heavily.

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.

A City Is Composed Of Different Kinds Of Men; Similar People Cannot Bring A City Into Existence.

Beauty Is The Gift Of God

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

The Laws Are, And Ought To Be, Relative To The Constitution, And Not The Constitution To The Laws. A Constitution Is The Organization Of Offices In A State, And Determines What Is To Be The Governing Body, And What Is The End Of Each Community. But Laws Are Not To Be Confounded With The Principles Of The Constitution; They Are The Rules According To Which The Magistrates Should Administer The State, And Proceed Against Offenders.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

Music Imitates (represents) The Passions Or States Of The Soul, Such As Gentleness, Anger, Courage, Temperance, And Their Opposites.

For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Philosophical And More Worthy Of Serious Attention Than History.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Be Able To Entertain A Thought Without Accepting It.

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

The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Lies In The Heart.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

Bring Your Desires Down To Your Present Means. Increase Them Only When Your Increased Means Permit.

While The Faculty Of Sensation Is Dependent Upon The Body, Mind Is Separable From It

When Quarrels And Complaints Arise, It Is When People Who Are Equal Have Not Got Equal Shares, Or Vice-versa.

The Legislator Should Direct His Attention Above All To The Education Of Youth; For The Neglect Of Education Does Harm To The Constitution. The Citizen Should Be Molded To Suit The Form Of Government Under Which He Lives. For Each Government Has A Peculiar Character Which Originally Formed And Which Continues To Preserve It. The Character Of Democracy Creates Democracy, And The Character Of Oligarchy Creates Oligarchy.

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.

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

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.

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

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.

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

Of Actions Some Aim At What Is Necessary And Useful, And Some At What Is Honorable. And The Preference Given To One Or The Other Class Of Actions Must Necessarily Be Like The Preference Given To One Or Other Part Of The Soul And Its Actions Over The Other; There Must Be War For The Sake Of Peace, Business For The Sake Of Leisure, Things Useful And Necessary For The Sake Of Things Honorable.

I Count Him Braver Who Overcomes His Desires Than Him Who Conquers His Enemies; For The Hardest Victory Is Over Self.

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

Character Education

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

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.

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.

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

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

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

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

All Men, Or Most Men, Wish What Is Noble But Choose What Is Profitable; And While It Is Noble To Render A Service Not With An Eye To Receiving One In Return, It Is Profitable To Receive One. One Ought Therefore, If One Can, To Return The Equivalent Of Services Received, And To Do So Willingly; For One Ought Not To Make A Man One's Friend If One Is Unwilling To Return His Favors.

One Citizen Differs From Another, But The Salvation Of The Community Is The Common Business Of Them All. This Community Is The Constitution; The Virtue Of The Citizen Must Therefore Be Relative To The Constitution Of Which He Is A Member.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

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

The More You Know, The More You Know You Don't Know.

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

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.

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

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

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

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Rhetoric Is The Counterpart Of Logic; Since Both Are Conversant With Subjects Of Such A Nature As It Is The Business Of All To Have A Certain Knowledge Of, And Which Belong To No Distinct Science. Wherefore All Men In Some Way Participate Of Both; Since All, To A Certain Extent, Attempt, As Well To Sift, As To Maintain An Argument; As Well To Defend Themselves, As To Impeach.

When We Deliberate It Is About Means And Not Ends.

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

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

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

Friends Are An Aid To The Young, To Guard Them From Error; To The Elderly, To Attend To Their Wants And To Supplement Their Failing Power Of Action; To Those In The Prime Of Life, To Assist Them To Noble Deeds.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

The Purpose Of The Present Study Is Not As It Is In Other Inquiries, The Attainment Of Knowledge, We Are Not Conducting This Inquiry In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Else There Would Be No Advantage In Studying It. For That Reason, It Becomes Necessary To Examine The Problem Of Our Actions And To Ask How They Are To Be Performed. For As We Have Said, The Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

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.

The Majority Of Mankind Would Seem To Be Beguiled Into Error By Pleasure, Which, Not Being Really A Good, Yet Seems To Be So. So That They Indiscriminately Choose As Good Whatsoever Gives Them Pleasure, While They Avoid All Pain Alike As Evil.

The Worst Thing About Slavery Is That The Slaves Eventually Get To Like It.

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.

He Who Confers A Benefit On Anyone Loves Him Better Than He Is Beloved.

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.

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.

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.

Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Characteristics

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.

All Men By Nature Desire Knowledge.

If A Man Of Good Natural Disposition Acquires Intelligence [as A Whole], Then He Excels In Conduct, And The Disposition Which Previously Only Resembled Virtue, Will Now Be Virtue In The True Sense. Hence Just As With The Faculty Of Forming Opinions [the Calculative Faculty] There Are Two Qualities, Cleverness And Prudence, So Also In The Moral Part Of The Soul There Are Two Qualities, Natural Virtue And True Virtue; And True Virtue Cannot Exist Without Prudence.

Since The Whole City Has One End, It Is Manifest That Education Should Be One And The Same For All, And That It Should Be Public, And Not Private - Not As At Present, When Every One Looks After His Own Children Separately, And Gives Them Separate Instruction Of The Sort Which He Thinks Best; The Training In Things Which Are Of Common Interest Should Be The Same For All. Neither Must We Suppose That Any One Of The Citizens Belongs To Himself, For They All Belong To The State, And Are Each Of Them A Part Of The State, And The Care Of Each Part Is Inseparable From The Care Of The Whole.

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.

It Is Not Easy To Determine The Nature Of Music, Or Why Any One Should Have A Knowledge Of It.

A Brave Man Is Clear In His Discourse, And Keeps Close To Truth.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross; There Lies Your Vocation.

While Those Whom Devotion To Abstract Discussions Has Rendered Unobservant Of The Facts Are Too Ready To Dogmatize On The Basis Of A Few Observations.

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

The Gods Too Are Fond Of A Joke.

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

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

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

We Can't Learn Without Pain.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

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

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.

And Of Course, The Brain Is Not Responsible For Any Of The Sensations At All. The Correct View Is That The Seat And Source Of Sensation Is The Region Of The Heart.

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.

Humor Is The Only Test Of Gravity, And Gravity Of Humor; For A Subject Which Will Not Bear Raillery Is Suspicious, And A Jest Which Will Not Bear Serious Examination Is False Wit.

For Both Excessive And Insufficient Exercise Destroy One's Strength, And Both Eating And Drinking Too Much Or Too Little Destroy Health, Whereas The Right Quantity Produces, Increases And Preserves It. So It Is The Same With Temperance, Courage And The Other Virtues. This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

When A Draco Has Eaten Much Fruit, It Seeks The Juice Of The Bitter Lettuce; It Has Been Seen To Do This.

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.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

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.

Money Was Intended To Be Used In Exchange, But Not To Increase At Interest. And This Term Interest, Which Means The Birth Of Money From Money, Is Applied To The Breeding Of Money Because The Offspring Resembles The Parent. Wherefore Of All Modes Of Getting Wealth This Is The Most Unnatural.

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

A Tyrant Must Put On The Appearance Of Uncommon Devotion To Religion. Subjects Are Less Apprehensive Of Illegal Treatment From A Ruler Whom They Consider God-fearing And Pious. On The Other Hand, They Do Less Easily Move Against Him, Believing That He Has The Gods On His Side.

The Arousing Of Prejudice, Pity, Anger, And Similar Emotions Has Nothing To Do With The Essential Facts, But Is Merely A Personal Appeal To The Man Who Is Judging The Case.

Virtue Means Doing The Right Thing, In Relation To The Right Person, At The Right Time, To The Right Extent, In The Right Manner, And For The Right Purpose. Thus, To Give Money Away Is Quite A Simple Task, But For The Act To Be Virtuous, The Donor Must Give To The Right Person, For The Right Purpose, In The Right Amount, In The Right Manner, And At The Right Time.

If You String Together A Set Of Speeches Expressive Of Character, And Well Finished In Point And Diction And Thought, You Will Not Produce The Essential Tragic Effect Nearly So Well As With A Play Which, However Deficient In These Respects, Yet Has A Plot And Artistically Constructed Incidents.

Salt Water When It Turns Into Vapour Becomes Sweet, And The Vapour Does Not Form Salt Water When It Condenses Again. This I Know By Experiment. The Same Thing Is True In Every Case Of The Kind: Wine And All Fluids That Evaporate And Condense Back Into A Liquid State Become Water. They All Are Water Modified By A Certain Admixture, The Nature Of Which Determines Their Flavour.

For What One Has To Learn To Do, We Learn By Doing.

The Life Of Theoretical Philosophy Is The Best And Happiest A Man Can Lead. Few Men Are Capable Of It And Then Only Intermittently. For The Rest There Is A Second-best Way Of Life, That Of Moral Virtue And Practical Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

If Happiness Is Activity In Accordance With Excellence, It Is Reasonable That It Should Be In Accordance With The Highest Excellence.

95% Of Everything You Do Is The Result Of Habit.

[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

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

It Is Better For A City To Be Governed By A Good Man Than By Good Laws.

Those Who Act Receive The Prizes.

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

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

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

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.

This Body Is Not A Home, But An Inn; And That Only For A Short Time. Seneca Friendship Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

Irrational Passions Would Seem To Be As Much A Part Of Human Nature As Is Reason.

No Excellent Soul Is Exempt From A Mixture Of Madness.

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

That Rule Is The Better Which Is Exercised Over Better Subjects.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Expect That Amount Of Exactness Which The Nature Of The Particular Subject Admits. It Is Equally Unreasonable To Accept Merely Probable Conclusions From A Mathematician And To Demand Strict Demonstration From An Orator.

Being A Father Is The Most Rewarding Thing A Man Whose Career Has Plateaued Can Do.

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

There Are, Then, These Three Means Of Effecting Persuasion. The Man Who Is To Be In Command Of Them Must, It Is Clear, Be Able (1) To Reason Logically, (2) To Understand Human Character And Goodness In Their Various Forms, And (3) To Understand The Emotions--that Is, To Name Them And Describe Them, To Know Their Causes And The Way In Which They Are Excited.

Life Is Only Meaningful When We Are Striving For A Goal .

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

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

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

Property Should Be In A General Sense Common, But As A General Rule Private... In Well-ordered States, Although Every Man Has His Own Property, Some Things He Will Place At The Disposal Of His Friends, While Of Others He Shares The Use Of Them.

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

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