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Friends Enhance Our Ability To Think And Act.
-Aristotle
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Friends Enhance Our Ability

Aristotle
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Friends Enhance Our Ability To Think And Act.

Understanding the Quote: "friends enhance our ability to think and act...."

This quote by Aristotle reflects deeply on the theme of thinking. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Thinking, Ability, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Aristotle interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Aristotle

Aristotle is celebrated for insightful thoughts on thinking and ability. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Thinking
Ability
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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.
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A Friend Is A Second Self.
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There Must Be In Prudence Also Some Master Virtue.
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There Is A Cropping-time In The Races Of Men, As In The Fruits Of The Field; And Sometimes, If The Stock Be Good, There Springs Up For A Time A Succession Of Splendid Men; And Then Comes A Period Of Barrenness.
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We Make War That We May Live In Peace.
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Shipping Magnate Of The 20th Century If Women Didn't Exist, All The Money In The World Would Have No Meaning.
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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.
Men
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In A Polity, Each Citizen Is To Possess His Own Arms, Which Are Not Supplied Or Owned By The State.
Gun
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The Life Of The Intellect Is The Best And Pleasantest For Man, Because The Intellect More Than Anything Else Is The Man. Thus It Will Be The Happiest Life As Well.
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Everything Is Done With A Goal, And That Goal Is "good."
Goal
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Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.
Hope
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Whatever We Learn To Do, We Learn By Actually Doing It; Men Come To Be Builders, For Instance, By Building, And Harp Players By Playing The Harp. In The Same Way, By Doing Just Acts We Come To Be Just; By Doing Self-controlled Acts, We Come To Be Self-controlled ; And By Doing Brave Acts, We Become Brave.
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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.
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He Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.
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The Rattle Is A Toy Suited To The Infant Mind, And Education Is A Rattle Or Toy For Children Of Larger Growth.
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Happiness
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Happiness Is The Utilization Of One's Talents Along Lines Of Excellence.
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Lines
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The Aim Of The Wise Is Not To Secure Pleasure, But To Avoid Pain.
Wise
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Whether We Will Philosophize Or We Won't Philosophize, We Must Philosophize.
All Who Have Meditated On The Art Of Governing Mankind Have Been Convinced That The Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth.
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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.
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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.
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We Maintain, And Have Said In The Ethics, If The Arguments There Adduced Are Of Any Value, That Happiness Is The Realization And Perfect Exercise Of Virtue, And This Not Conditional, But Absolute. And I Used The Term 'conditional' To Express That Which Is Indispensable, And 'absolute' To Express That Which Is Good In Itself.
Exercise
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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.
War
Class
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If, Then, There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake (everything Else Being Desired For The Sake Of This), And If We Do Not Choose Everything For The Sake Of Something Else (for At That Rate The Process Would Go On To Infinity, So That Our Desire Would Be Empty And Vain), Clearly This Must Be The Good And The Chief Good.
Desire
Would Be
Goes On
All Men By Nature Desire Knowledge.
Inspirational
Education
Learning
The Soul Consists Of Two Parts, One Irrational And The Other Capable Of Reason. (whether These Two Parts Are Really Distinct In The Sense That The Parts Of The Body Or Of Any Other Divisible Whole Are Distinct, Or Whether Though Distinguishable In Thought As Two They Are Inseparable In Reality, Like The Convex And Concave Of A Curve, Is A Question Of No Importance For The Matter In Hand.)
Reality
Curves
Hands
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.
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In Order To Be Effective You Need Not Only Virtue But Also Mental Strength.
Attachment
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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.
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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.
Principles
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All Art, All Education, Can Be Merely A Supplement To Nature.
Art
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Supplements
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.
Government
Democracy
Oligarchy
No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.
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Think As The Wise Men Think, But Talk Like The Simple People Do.
Wise
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The Body Is Most Fully Developed From Thirty To Thirty-five Years Of Age, The Mind At About Forty-nine.
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The Art Of Wealth-getting Which Consists In Household Management, On The One Hand, Has A Limit; The Unlimited Acquisition Of Wealth Is Not Its Business. And Therefore, In One Point Of View, All Riches Must Have A Limit; Nevertheless, As A Matter Of Fact, We Find The Opposite To Be The Case; For All Getters Of Wealth Increase Their Hard Coin Without Limit.
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If They Do Not Share Equally Enjoyments And Toils, Those Who Labor Much And Get Little Will Necessarily Complain Of Those Who Labor Little And Receive Or Consume Much. But Indeed There Is Always A Difficulty In Men Living Together And Having All Human Relations In Common, But Especially In Their Having Common Property.
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Those Who Merely Possess The Goods Of Fortune May Be Haughty And Insolent; . . . They Try To Imitate The Great-souled Man Without Being Really Like Him, And Only Copy Him In What They Can, Reproducing His Contempt For Others But Not His Virtuous Conduct. For The Great-souled Man Is Justified In Despising Other People - His Estimates Are Correct; But Most Proud Men Have No Good Ground For Their Pride.
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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.
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The More You Know, The More You Know You Don't Know.
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Happiness Is The Highest Good
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Philosophical
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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.
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Demand
Accepting
They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.
Government
Able
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What Has Soul In It Differs From What Has Not, In That The Former Displays Life. Now This Word Has More Than One Sense, And Provided Any One Alone Of These Is Found In A Thing We Say That Thing Is Living. Living, That Is, May Mean Thinking Or Perception Or Local Movement And Rest, Or Movement In The Sense Of Nutrition, Decay And Growth. Hence We Think Of Plants Also As Living, For They Are Observed To Possess In Themselves An Originative Power Through Which They Increase Or Decrease In All Spatial Directions.
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Thinking
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Worthless Persons Appointed To Have Supreme Control Of Weighty Affairs Do A Lot Of Damage.
Damage
Affair
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To Enjoy The Things We Ought And To Hate The Things We Ought Has The Greatest Bearing On Excellence Of Character.
Inspirational
Hate
Character
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.
Mean
Missing
Feelings
They - Young People Have Exalted Notions, Because They Have Not Been Humbled By Life Or Learned Its Necessary Limitations; Moreover, Their Hopeful Disposition Makes Them Think Themselves Equal To Great Things - And That Means Having Exalted Notions. They Would Always Rather Do Noble Deeds Than Useful Ones: Their Lives Are Regulated More By Moral Feeling Than By Reasoning - All Their Mistakes Are In The Direction Of Doing Things Excessively And Vehemently. They Overdo Everything - They Love Too Much, Hate Too Much, And The Same With Everything Else.
Love
Hate
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It Is Our Actions And The Soul's Active Exercise Of Its Functions That We Posit (as Being Happiness).
Happiness
Exercise
Soul
A Democracy When Put To The Strain Grows Weak, And Is Supplanted By Oligarchy.
Democracy
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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.
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Of All The Varieties Of Virtues, Liberalism Is The Most Beloved.
Liberty
Beloved
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People Become House Builders Through Building Houses, Harp Players Through Playing The Harp. We Grow To Be Just By Doing Things Which Are Just.
Player
Building Houses
People
Virtue Also Depends On Ourselves. And So Also Does Vice. For Where We Are Free To Act We Are Also Free To Refrain From Acting, And Where We Are Able To Say No We Are Also Able To Say Yes; If Therefore We Are Responsible For Doing A Thing When To Do It Right, We Are Also Responsible For Not Doing It When Not To Do It Is Wrong, And If We Are Responsible For Rightly Not Doing A Thing, We Are Also Responsible For Wrongly Doing It.
Acting
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Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.
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Motivational
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.. For Desire Is Like A Wild Beast, And Anger Perverts Rulers And The Very Best Of Men. Hence Law Is Intelligence Without Appetition.
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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.
Men
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The Character Which Results From Wealth Is That Of A Prosperous Fool.
Character
Fool
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Neither By Nature, Then, Nor Contrary To Nature Do The Virtues Arise In Us; Rather We Are Adapted By Nature To Receive Them, And Are Made Perfect By Habit.
Perfect
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Habit
Music Has The Power Of Producing A Certain Effect On The Moral Character Of The Soul, And If It Has The Power To Do This, It Is Clear That The Young Must Be Directed To Music And Must Be Educated In It.
Character
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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.
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It Is The Active Exercise Of Our Faculties In Conformity With Virtue That Causes Happiness, And The Opposite Activities Its Opposite.
Happiness
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Opposites
Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.
Writing
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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
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The First Essential Responsibility Of The State Is Control Of The Market-place: There Must Be Some Official Charged With The Duty Of Seeing That Honest Dealing And Good Order Prevail. For One Of The Well-nigh Essential Activities Of All States Is The Buying And Selling Of Goods To Meet Their Mutual Basic Needs; This Is The Quickest Way To Self-sufficiency, Which Seems To Be What Moves Men To Combine Under A Single Constitution.
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Perception Starts With The Eye.
Eye
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It May Be Argued That Peoples For Whom Philosophers Legislate Are Always Prosperous.
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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.
Order
Would Be
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It Is In Justice That The Ordering Of Society Is Centered.
Justice
Self Centered
When Several Villages Are United In A Single Complete Community, Large Enough To Be Nearly Or Quite Self-sufficing, The State Comes Into Existence, Originating In The Bare Needs Of Life, And Continuing In Existence For The Sake Of A Good Life.
Good Life
Self
Community
Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Any One Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed, There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man.
Men
Evil
Human Nature
The Intention Makes The Crime.
Integrity
Hypocrisy
Identity
Even If You Must Have Regard To Wealth, In Order To Secure Leisure, Yet It Is Surely A Bad Thing That The Greatest Offices, Such As Those Of Kings And Generals, Should Be Bought. The Law Which Allows This Abuse Makes Wealth Of More Account Than Virtue, And The Whole State Becomes Avaricious.
Kings
Order
Law
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.
Education
Mind
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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.
Different
May
Way
We Must Become Just Be Doing Just Acts.
Philosophy
Educational
Literature
Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.
Community
Together
Seems
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.
Government
Sovereign
Facts
There Are Two Distinctive Peculiarities By Reference To Which We Characterize The Soul (1) Local Movement And (2) Thinking, Discriminating, And Perceiving. Thinking Both Speculative And Practical Is Regarded As Akin To A Form Of Perceiving; For In The One As Well As The Other The Soul Discriminates And Is Cognizant Of Something Which Is.
Thinking
Two
Soul
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.
Men
Soul
Excellence
Suffering Becomes Beautiful When Anyone Bears Great Calamities With Cheerfulness, Not Through Insensibility But Through Greatness Of Mind.
Beauty
Beautiful
Gratitude
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.
Thinking
Divinity
Excellent
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!
Men
Two
Sick
All Things Are Full Of Gods.
All Things
It Is Impossible, Or Not Easy, To Alter By Argument What Has Long Been Absorbed By Habit
Long
Impossible
Argument
Greatness Of Spirit Is Accompanied By Simplicity And Sincerity.
Greatness
Simplicity
Spirit
No One Who Desires To Become Good Will Become Good Unless He Does Good Things.
Desire
Doe
Good Things
The Hand Is The Tool Of Tools.
Hands
Tools
Materials
The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.
Extremes
Best Things
That Which Is Common To The Greatest Number Has The Least Care Bestowed Upon It
Caring
Numbers
Care
Intuition Is The Source Of Scientific Knowledge.
Inspirational
Spiritual
Educational
To Thales The Primary Question Was Not What Do We Know, But How Do We Know It.
Math
Statistics
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We Have No Evidence As Yet About Mind Or The Power To Think; It Seems To Be A Widely Different Kind Of Soul, Differing As What Is Eternal From What Is Perishable; It Alone Is Capable Of Existence In Isolation From All Other Psychic Powers.
Thinking
Psychics
Soul
Quality Is Not An Act, It Is A Habit.
Inspirational
Motivational
Inspiring
Speech Is The Representation Of The Mind, And Writing Is The Representation Of Speech.
Writing
Mind
Speech
When...we, As Individuals, Obey Laws That Direct Us To Behave For The Welfare Of The Community As A Whole, We Are Indirectly Helping To Promote The Pursuit Of Happiness By Our Fellow Human Beings.
Pursuit Of Happiness
Law
Community
What Is The Highest Of All Goods Achievable By Action? ...both The General Run Of Man And People Of Superior Refinement Say That It Is Happiness ...but With Regard To What Happiness Is They Differ.
Running
Men
People
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.
Inquiry
Pursuit
Aim
When You Ask A Dumb Question, You Get A Smart Answer.
Inspirational
Smart
Dumb
People Never Know Each Other Until They Have Eaten A Certain Amount Of Salt Together.
People
Together
Salt
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.
Soul
Intellectual
Truth Is
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.
Block
Agriculture
Land
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.
Health
Giving
Rising
The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.
Men
Joy
Favors
Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.
Love
Life
Positive
He Is Courageous Who Endures And Fears The Right Thing, For The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Times.
Courage
Way
Endure
Every Rascal Is Not A Thief, But Every Thief Is A Rascal.
Funny
Humor
Thieves
Wise People Have An Inward Sense Of What Is Beautiful, And The Highest Wisdom Is To Trust This Intuition And Be Guided By It.
Beautiful
Wise
People
So That The Lover Of Myths, Which Are A Compact Of Wonders, Is By The Same Token A Lover Of Wisdom.
Lovers
Wonder
Myth
The Good Man Is He For Whom, Because He Is Virtuous, The Things That Are Absolutely Good Are Good; It Is Also Plain That His Use Of These Goods Must Be Virtuous And In The Absolute Sense Good.
Men
Good Man
Use
What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.
Character
Anxiety
Political
In Painting, The Most Brilliant Colors, Spread At Random And Without Design, Will Give Far Less Pleasure Than The Simplest Outline Of A Figure.
Art
Color
Giving
What We Know Is Not Capable Of Being Otherwise; Of Things Capable Of Being Otherwise We Do Not Know, When They Have Passed Outsideour Observation, Whether They Exist Or Not. Therefore The Object Of Knowledge Is Of Necessity. Therefore It Is Eternal; For Things That Are Of Necessity In The Unqualified Sense Are All Eternal; And Things That Are Eternal Are Ungenerated And Imperishable.
Knowledge
Unqualified
Eternity
The Angry Man Wishes The Object Of His Anger To Suffer In Return; Hatred Wishes Its Object Not To Exist.
Men
Angry Man
Hatred
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.
Math
Principles
Firsts
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.
Soul
Digestion
Produce
Philosophy Is The Science Which Considers Truth.
Truth
Philosophy
Philosophical
A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.
Passion
Learning
Character
To Run Away From Trouble Is A Form Of Cowardice And, While It Is True That The Suicide Braves Death, He Does It Not For Some Noble Object But To Escape Some Ill.
Suicide
Running
Suicidal
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.
Pain
Opposites
Quality
If There Is Any Kind Of Animal Which Is Female And Has No Male Separate From It, It Is Possible That This May Generate A Young One From Itself. No Instance Of This Worthy Of Any Credit Has Been Observed Up To The Present At Any Rate, But One Case In The Class Of Fishes Makes Us Hesitate. No Male Of The So-called Erythrinus Has Ever Yet Been Seen, But Females, And Specimens Full Of Roe, Have Been Seen. Of This, However, We Have As Yet No Proof Worthy Of Credit.
Animal
Class
Males
A Goal Gets Us Motivated,while A Good Habit Keeps Us Stay Motivated.
Goal
Habit
Motivated
Young Men Have Strong Passions And Tend To Gratify Them Indiscriminately. Of The Bodily Desires, It Is The Sexual By Which They Are Most Swayed And In Which They Show Absence Of Control...they Are Changeable And Fickle In Their Desires Which Are Violent While They Last, But Quickly Over: Their Impulses Are Keen But Not Deep Rooted.
Strong
Passion
Men
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.
Children
Husband
Loss
Masculine Republics Give Way To Feminine Democracies, And Feminine Democracies Give Way To Tyranny.
Giving
Democracy
Republic
Shame Is An Ornament To The Young; A Disgrace To The Old.
Ornaments
Shame
Young
Equality Consists In The Same Treatment Of Similar Persons.
Equality
Equal Treatment
Persons
The Antidote For Fifty Enemies Is One Friend.
Friendship
Relationship
True Friend
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.
Law
Organization
Office
Patience S Bitter, But It's Fruit Is Sweet.
Sweet
Fruit
Bitter
Pay Attention To The Young, And Make Them Just As Good As Possible.
Teaching
Attention
Pay
To Let Them Share In The Highest Offices Is To Take A Risk; Inevitably, Their Unjust Standards Will Cause Them To Commit Injustice, And Their Lack Of Judgement Will Lead Them Into Error. On The Other Hand There Is A Risk In Not Giving Them A Share, And In Their Non Participation, For When There Are Many Who Have No Property And No Honours They Inevitably Constitute A Huge Hostile Element In The State. But It Can Still Remain Open To Them To Participate In Deliberating And Judging.
Hands
Errors
Giving
Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?
Justice
Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.
Mindfulness
Understood
The Hardest Victory Is The Victory Over Self.
Motivational
Sports
Self
People Of Superior Refinement And Of Active Disposition Identify Happiness With Honour; For This Is Roughly Speaking, The End Of Political Life.
People
Political
Human Nature
A Bad Man Can Do A Million Times More Harm Than A Beast.
Men
Beast
Harm
He Who Takes His Fill Of Every Pleasure ... Becomes Depraved; While He Who Avoids All Pleasures Alike ... Becomes Insensible.
Pleasure
Depraved
Insensible
Tyrants Preserve Themselves By Sowing Fear And Mistrust Among The Citizens By Means Of Spies, By Distracting Them With Foreign Wars, By Eliminating Men Of Spirit Who Might Lead A Revolution, By Humbling The People, And Making Them Incapable Of Decisive Action.
War
Mean
Men
Life Is Full Of Chances And Changes, And The Most Prosperous Of Men May In The Evening Of His Days Meet With Great Misfortunes.
Destiny
Men
May
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.
Stars
Lying
Night
To Say Of What Is That It Is Not, Or Of What Is Not That It Is, Is False, While To Say Of What Is That It Is, And Of What Is Not That It Is Not, Is True.
Confusing
The Virtue As The Art Consecrates Itself Constantly To What's Difficult To Do, And The Harder The Task, The Shinier The Success.
Art
Tasks
Virtue
A State Is An Association Of Similar Persons Whose Aim Is The Best Life Possible. What Is Best Is Happiness, And To Be Happy Is An Active Exercise Of Virtue And A Complete Employment Of It.
Exercise
Association
Employment
All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.
Jobs
Business
Work
One Swallow Does Not Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day.
Spring
Doe
April
The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.
Passion
Tragedy
Ends
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.
Character
Play
Together
He Who Hath Many Friends Hath None.
Love
Friendship
Relationship
The Roots Of Education Are Bitter, But The Fruit Is Sweet.
Graduation
Education
Sweet
The Light Of The Day Is Followed By Night, As A Shadow Follows A Body.
Night
Light
Shadow
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.
Ignorance
Men
Principles
Art Completes What Nature Cannot Bring To Finish. The Artist Gives Us Knowledge Of Nature's Unrealized Ends.
Art
Artist
Giving
Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.
Depends
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.
Government
Community
Political
But Nothing Is Yet Clear On The Subject Of The Intellect And The Contemplative Faculty. However, It Seems To Be Another Kind Of Soul, And This Alone Admits Of Being Separated, As That Which Is Eternal From That Which Is Perishable, While It Is Clear From These Remarks That The Other Parts Of The Soul Are Not Separable, As Some Assert Them To Be, Though It Is Obvious That They Are Conceptually Distinct.
Soul
Kind
Faculty
Meanness Is Incurable; It Cannot Be Cured By Old Age, Or By Anything Else.
Anger
Age
Meanness
It Is Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences.
Success
Education
Simplicity
Pleasure Causes Us To Do Base Actions And Pain Causes Us To Abstain From Doing Noble Actions.
Pain
Noble
Causes
Personal Beauty Is A Greater Recommendation Than Any Letter Of Reference.
Beauty
Philosophical
Letters
For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Philosophical And More Worthy Of Serious Attention Than History.
Philosophical
Historical
Serious
Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.
Brother
Strife
Now The Greatest External Good We Should Assume To Be The Thing Which We Offer As A Tribute To The Gods, And Which Is Most Coveted By Men Of High Station, And Is The Prize Awarded For The Noblest Deeds; And Such A Thing Is Honor, For Honor Is Clearly The Greatest Of External Goods.
Men
Honor
Deeds
Men Create Gods After Their Own Image, Not Only With Regard To Their Form But With Regard To Their Mode Of Life.
Atheist
Men
Religion
Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.
Insolence
Wit
Wells
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.
Fall
Beer
Drunk
The Whole Is More Than The Sum Of Its Parts.
Peace
Philosophical
Logical Reasoning
No State Will Be Well Administered Unless The Middle Class Holds Sway.
Class
States
Middle
Those Who Have Been Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, And The Arts Have All Had Tendencies Toward Melancholia.
Art
Philosophy
Tendencies
Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be, And Similarly Everything That Depends On Art Or Any Rational Cause, And Especially If It Depends On The Best Of All Causes.
Art
Causes
Action
Beauty Is A Gift Of God.
Beauty
Gift From God
Revolutions Are Effected In Two Ways, By Force And By Fraud.
Two
Way
Revolution
[meanness] Is More Ingrained In Man's Nature Than Prodigality; The Mass Of Mankind Are Avaricious Rather Than Open-handed.
Men
Human Nature
Mass
The Proof That You Know Something Is That You Are Able To Teach It
Able
Proof
Teach
Republics Decline Into Democracies And Democracies Degenerate Into Despotisms.
Philosophical
Historical
Democracy
Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth
Educational
Fate
Empires
Happiness Is Activity.
Happiness
Laughter
Joy
A Courageous Person Is One Who Faces Fearful Things As He Ought And As Reason Directs For The Sake Of What Is Noble.
Noble
Sake
Faces
It Is Better For A City To Be Governed By A Good Man Than By Good Laws.
Men
Law
Cities
The Best Friend Is He That, When He Wishes A Person's Good, Wishes It For That Person's Own Sake.
Wish
Sake
Good Wishes
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.
Art
Moving
Science
Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.
Nature
Philosophical
Animal
A Period May Be Defined As A Portion Of Speech That Has In Itself A Beginning And An End, Being At The Same Time Not Too Big To Be Taken In At A Glance
Taken
May
Speech
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.
Daily Tasks
Tyrants
People
Rhetoric Is Useful Because The True And The Just Are Naturally Superior To Their Opposites, So That, If Decisions Are Improperly Made, They Must Owe Their Defeat To Their Own Advocates; Which Is Reprehensible. Further, In Dealing With Certain Persons, Even If We Possessed The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, We Should Not Find It Easy To Persuade Them By The Employment Of Such Knowledge. For Scientific Discourse Is Concerned With Instruction, But In The Case Of Such Persons Instruction Is Impossible.
Opposites
Decision
Employment
Prosperity Makes Friends And Adversity Tries Them. A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies
True Friend
Inspiration
Adversity
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.
Mean
Happy Life
Cities
Some Believe It To Be Just Friends Wanting, As If To Be Healthy Enough To Wish Health.
Believe
Healthy
Just Friends
The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.
Wise
Men
Tongue
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.
Anger
Men
Judging
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.
Differences
Unity
Absence
No Tyrant Need Fear Till Men Begin To Feel Confident In Each Other.
Men
Tyrants
Needs
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.
Mean
Men
Practice
The Pleasures Arising From Thinking And Learning Will Make Us Think And Learn All The More. 1153a 23
Thinking
Pleasure
Nicomachean Ethics
Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.
Education
Learning
Levels
It Is Evident, Then, That There Is A Sort Of Education In Which Parents Should Train Their Sons, Not As Being Useful Or Necessary, But Because It Is Liberal Or Noble.
Education
Son
Parent
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.
Mean
Names
Honor
The One Exclusive Sign Of Thorough Knowledge Is The Power Of Teaching.
Life
Teacher
Teaching
Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."
Men
Evil
Hatred
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