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For It Is Not True, As Some Treatise-mongers Lay Down In Their Systems, Of The Probity Of The Speaker, That It Contributes Nothing To Persuasion; But Moral Character Nearly, I May Say, Carries With It The Most Sovereign Efficacy In Making Credible.

-Aristotle

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For It Is Not

Aristotle

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For It Is Not True, As Some Treatise-mongers Lay Down In Their Systems, Of The Probity Of The Speaker, That It Contributes Nothing To Persuasion; But Moral Character Nearly, I May Say, Carries With It The Most Sovereign Efficacy In Making Credible.

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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.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

It Is True, Indeed, That The Account Plato Gives In 'timaeus' Is Different From What He Says In His So-called 'unwritten Teachings.'

Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Pursuit, Is Thought To Aim At Some Good; And For This Reason The Good Has Rightly Been Declared To Be That At Which All Things Aim.

Those Who Cannot Bravely Face Danger Are The Slaves Of Their Attackers.

American Veterans

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

Even If We Could Suppose The Citizen Body To Be Virtuous, Without Each Of Them Being So, Yet The Latter Would Be Better, For In The Virtue Of Each The Virtue Of All Is Involved.

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.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

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.

In The Case Of Some People, Not Even If We Had The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, Would It Be Easy To Persuade Them Were We To Address Them Through The Medium Of That Knowledge; For A Scientific Discourse, It Is The Privilege Of Education To Appreciate, And It Is Impossible That This Should Extend To The Multitude.

Because The Rich Are Generally Few In Number, While The Poor Are Many, They Appear To Be Antagonistic, And As The One Or The Other Prevails They Form The Government. Hence Arises The Common Opinion That There Are Two Kinds Of Government - Democracy And Oligarchy.

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

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

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

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

Those Who Have The Command Of The Arms In A Country Are Masters Of The State, And Have It In Their Power To Make What Revolutions They Please. [thus,] There Is No End To Observations On The Difference Between The Measures Likely To Be Pursued By A Minister Backed By A Standing Army, And Those Of A Court Awed By The Fear Of An Armed People.

The Best Way To Avoid Envy Is To Deserve The Success You Get.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

Teenagers These Days Are Out Of Control. They Eat Like Pigs, They Are Disrespectful Of Adults, They Interrupt And Contradict Their Parents, And They Terrorize Their Teachers.

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

It Is Also In The Interests Of A Tyrant To Make His Subjects Poo...the People Are So Occupied With Their Daily Tasks That They Have No Time For Plotting.

The Same Things Are Best Both For Individuals And For States, And These Are The Things Which The Legislator Ought To Implant In The Minds Of His Citizens.

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

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.

Happiness Is Self-connectedness.

People Generally Despise Where They Flatter.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

The Many Are More Incorruptible Than The Few; They Are Like The Greater Quantity Of Water Which Is Less Easily Corrupted Than A Little.

To Be Conscious That We Are Perceiving Or Thinking Is To Be Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

There Is Also A Doubt As To What Is To Be The Supreme Power In The State: - Is It The Multitude? Or The Wealthy? Or The Good? Or The One Best Man? Or A Tyrant?

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

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.

In Cases Of This Sort, Let Us Say Adultery, Rightness And Wrongness Do Not Depend On Committing It With The Right Woman At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, But The Mere Fact Of Committing Such Action At All Is To Do Wrong.

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.

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

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

The Roots Of Education Are Bitter, But The Fruit Is Sweet.

It Is The Activity Of The Intellect That Constitutes Complete Human Happiness - Provided It Be Granted A Complete Span Of Life, For Nothing That Belongs To Happiness Can Be Incomplete.

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

We Are What We Do. Excellence, Therefore, Is Not An Act, But A Habit.

This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

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.

Nature Makes Nothing Incomplete, And Nothing In Vain.

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

A Tragedy Is The Imitation Of An Action That Is Serious And Also, As Having Magnitude, Complete In Itself . . . With Incidents Arousing Pity And Fear, Wherewith To Accomplish Its Catharsis Of Such Emotions.

[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.

Find The Good. Seek The Unity. Ignore The Divisions Among Us.

All Virtue Is Summed Up In Dealing Justly.

For Man, When Perfected, Is The Best Of Animals, But, When Separated From Law And Justice, He Is The Worst Of All; Since Armed Injustice Is The More Dangerous, And He Is Equipped At Birth With The Arms Of Intelligence And With Moral Qualities Which He May Use For The Worst Ends. Wherefore, If He Have Not Virtue, He Is The Most Unholy And The Most Savage Of Animals, And The Most Full Of Lust And Gluttony. But Justice Is The Bond Of Men In States, And The Administration Of Justice, Which Is The Determination Of What Is Just, Is The Principle Of Order In Political Society.

Our Actions Determine Our Dispositions.

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

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

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

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

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.

We May Assume The Superiority Ceteris Paribus Of The Demonstration Which Derives From Fewer Postulates Or Hypotheses - In Short, From Fewer Premises.

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

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

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

Even The Best Of Men In Authority Are Liable To Be Corrupted By Passion. We May Conclude Then That The Law Is Reason Without Passion, And It Is Therefore Preferable To Any Individual.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

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

In Bad Or Corrupted Natures The Body Will Often Appear To Rule Over The Soul, Because They Are In An Evil And Unnatural Condition. At All Events We May Firstly Observe In Living Creatures Both A Despotical And A Constitutional Rule; For The Soul Rules The Body With A Despotical Rule, Whereas The Intellect Rules The Appetites With A Constitutional And Royal Rule. And It Is Clear That The Rule Of The Soul Over The Body, And Of The Mind And The Rational Element Over The Passionate, Is Natural And Expedient; Whereas The Equality Of The Two Or The Rule Of The Inferior Is Always Hurtful.

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

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

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 Tyrant, Who In Order To Hold His Power, Suppresses Every Superiority, Does Away With Good Men, Forbids Education And Light, Controls Every Movement Of The Citizens And, Keeping Them Under A Perpetual Servitude, Wants Them To Grow Accustomed To Baseness And Cowardice, Has His Spies Everywhere To Listen To What Is Said In The Meetings, And Spreads Dissension And Calumny Among The Citizens And Impoverishes Them, Is Obliged To Make War In Order To Keep His Subjects Occupied And Impose On Them Permanent Need Of A Chief.

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

Purpose Is A Desire For Something In Our Own Power, Coupled With An Investigation Into Its Means.

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.

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.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

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.

For We Do Not Think That We Know A Thing Until We Are Acquainted With Its Primary Conditions Or First Principles, And Have Carried Our Analysis As Far As Its Simplest Elements.

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.

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.

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

Now The Soul Of Man Is Divided Into Two Parts, One Of Which Has A Rational Principle In Itself, And The Other, Not Having A Rational Principle In Itself, Is Able To Obey Such A Principle. And We Call A Man In Any Way Good Because He Has The Virtues Of These Two Parts.

Anything That We Have To Learn To Do We Learn By The Actual Doing Of It; People Become Builders By Building And Instrumentalists By Playing Instruments. Similarily, We Become Just By Performing Just Acts, Temperate By Performing Temperate Ones, Brave By Performing Brave Ones.

Teachers, Who Educate Children, Deserve More Honour Than Parents, Who Merely Gave Them Birth; For The Latter Provided Mere Life, While The Former Ensure A Good Life.

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.

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.

Melancholy Men Of All Others Are Most Witty, Which Causeth Many Times A Divine Ravishment, And A Kinde Of Enthusiasmus, Which Stirreth Them Up To Bee Excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, Etc.

It Is More Difficult To Organize A Peace Than To Win A War; But The Fruits Of Victory Will Be Lost If The Peace Is Not Organized.

Anyone, Without Any Great Penetration, May Distinguish The Dispositions Consequent On Wealth; For Its Possessors Are Insolent And Overbearing, From Being Tainted In A Certain Way By The Getting Of Their Wealth. For They Are Affected As Though They Possessed Every Good; Since Wealth Is A Sort Of Standard Of The Worth Of Other Things; Whence Every Thing Seems To Be Purchasable By It.

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.

No One Praises Happiness As One Praises Justice, But We Call It A 'blessing,' Deeming It Something Higher And More Divine Than Things We Praise.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

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.

Perception Starts With The Eye.

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

There Is More Evidence To Prove That Saltness [of The Sea] Is Due To The Admixture Of Some Substance, Besides That Which We Have Adduced. Make A Vessel Of Wax And Put It In The Sea, Fastening Its Mouth In Such A Way As To Prevent Any Water Getting In. Then The Water That Percolates Through The Wax Sides Of The Vessel Is Sweet, The Earthy Stuff, The Admixture Of Which Makes The Water Salt, Being Separated Off As It Were By A Filter.

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.

Hence Both Women And Children Must Be Educated With An Eye To The Constitution, If Indeed It Makes Any Difference To The Virtue Of A City-state That Its Children Be Virtuous, And Its Women Too. And It Must Make A Difference, Since Half The Free Population Are Women, And From Children Come Those Who Participate In The Constitution.

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.

The Heart Is The Perfection Of The Whole Organism. Therefore The Principles Of The Power Of Perception And The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Must Lie In The Heart.

Boundaries Don't Protect Rivers, People Do.

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

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure.

The Soul Is Characterized By These Capacities; Self-nutrition, Sensation, Thinking, And Movement.

These Virtues Are Formed In Man By His Doing The Actions ... The Good Of Man Is A Working Of The Soul In The Way Of Excellence In A Complete Life.

The Antidote For Fifty Enemies Is One Friend.

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

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

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

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

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

All That We Do Is Done With An Eye To Something Else.

It Was Through The Feeling Of Wonder That Men Now And At First Began To Philosophize.

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.

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

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

Justice Is That Virtue Of The Soul Which Is Distributive According To Desert.

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

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.

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.

There Are Three Things That Are The Motives Of Choice And Three That Are The Motives Of Avoidance; Namely, The Noble, The Expedient, And The Pleasant, And Their Opposites, The Base, The Harmful, And The Painful. Now In Respect Of All These The Good Man Is Likely To Go Right And The Bad To Go Wrong, But Especially In Respect Of Pleasure; For Pleasure Is Common To Man With The Lower Animals, And Also It Is A Concomitant Of All The Objects Of Choice, Since Both The Noble And The Expedient Appear To Us Pleasant.

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.

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

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

They Who Have Drunk Beer, Fall On Their Back, But There Is A Peculiarity In The Effects Of The Drink Made From Barley, For They That Get Drunk On Other Intoxicating Liquors Fall On All Parts Of Their Body, They Fall On The Left Side, On The Right Side, On Their Faces, And And On Their Backs. But It Is Only Those Who Get Drunk On Beer That Fall On Their Backs With Their Faces Upward.

Female Cats Are Very Lascivious, And Make Advances To The Male.

A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life; But He Can Only Attain Happiness Under The Opposite Conditions

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State, Especially Of The Highest Of All. The Government Is Everywhere Sovereign In The State, And The Constitution Is In Fact The Government.

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.

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.

Prudence As Well As Moral Virtue Determines The Complete Performance Of A Man's Proper Function: Virtue Ensures The Rightness Of The End We Aim At, Prudence Ensures The Rightness Of The Means We Adopt To Gain That End.

Why Do Men Seek Honour? Surely In Order To Confirm The Favorable Opinion They Have Formed Of Themselves.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

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.

One Can Aim At Honor Both As One Ought, And More Than One Ought, And Less Than One Ought. He Whose Craving For Honor Is Excessive Is Said To Be Ambitious, And He Who Is Deficient In This Respect Unambitious; While He Who Observes The Mean Has No Peculiar Name.

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.

The Best Political Community Is Formed By Citizens Of The Middle Class.

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

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

There Must Be In Prudence Also Some Master Virtue.

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.

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.

Nothing Is What Rocks Dream About

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

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

Greatness Of Spirit Is Accompanied By Simplicity And Sincerity.

No Man Of High And Generous Spirit Is Ever Willing To Indulge In Flattery; The Good May Feel Affection For Others, But Will Not Flatter Them.

Generous Spirit

Courage Is The Mother Of All Virtues Because Without It, You Cannot Consistently Perform The Others.

Reason Is A Light That God Has Kindled In The Soul.

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

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

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

Criticism Is Something We Can Avoid Easily By Saying Nothing, Doing Nothing, And Being Nothing.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

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

If Some Animals Are Good At Hunting And Others Are Suitable For Hunting, Then The Gods Must Clearly Smile On Hunting.

Of The Irrational Part Of The Soul Again One Division Appears To Be Common To All Living Things, And Of A Vegetative Nature.

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

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

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

No Science Ever Defends Its First Principles.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

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.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

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

The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

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

So The Good Has Been Well Explained As That At Which All Things Aim.

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.

Men Regard It As Their Right To Return Evil For Evil And, If They Cannot, Feel They Have Lost Their Liberty.

A Democracy Exists Whenever Those Who Are Free And Are Not Well-off, Being In The Majority, Are In Sovereign Control Of Government, An Oligarchy When Control Lies With The Rich And Better-born, These Being Few.

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

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

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be.

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

The Character Which Results From Wealth Is That Of A Prosperous Fool.

... A Science Must Deal With A Subject And Its Properties.

Words Of Wisdom

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

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.

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

The Vigorous Are No Better Than The Lazy During One Half Of Life, For All Men Are Alike When Asleep.

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.

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

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.

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

A Man's Happiness Consists In The Free Exercise Of His Highest Faculties.

Greatness Of Soul Seems Therefore To Be As It Were A Crowning Ornament Of The Virtues; It Enhances Their Greatness, And It Cannot Exist Without Them. Hence It Is Hard To Be Truly Great-souled, For Greatness Of Soul Is Impossible Without Moral Nobility.

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

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

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

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