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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.

-Aristotle

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If The State Cannot

Aristotle

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

The Habits We Form From Childhood Make No Small Difference, But Rather They Make All The Difference.

To Give A Satisfactory Decision As To The Truth It Is Necessary To Be Rather An Arbitrator Than A Party To The Dispute.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

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.

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 True Nature Of A Thing Is The Highest It Can Become.

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

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.

Two Characteristic Marks Have Above All Others Been Recognized As Distinguishing That Which Has Soul In It From That Which Has Not - Movement And Sensation.

Melancholy Men, Of All Others, Are The Most Witty.

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

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

In Everything, It Is No Easy Task To Find The Middle.

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

Today You Can Start Forming Habits For Overcoming All Obstacles In Life... Even Nicotine Cravings

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

A Man Who Examines Each Subject From A Philosophical Standpoint Cannot Neglect Them: He Has To Omit Nothing, And State The Truth About Each Topic.

The Male Has More Teeth Than The Female In Mankind, And Sheep And Goats, And Swine. This Has Not Been Observed In Other Animals. Those Persons Which Have The Greatest Number Of Teeth Are The Longest Lived; Those Which Have Them Widely Separated, Smaller, And More Scattered, Are Generally More Short Lived.

In Seeking For Justice Men Seek For The Mean Or Neutral, For The Law Is The Mean. Again, Customary Laws Have More Weight, And Relate To More Important Matters, Than Written Laws, And A Man May Be A Safer Ruler Than The Written Law, But Not Safer Than The Customary Law.

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

Try Is A Noisy Way Of Doing Nothing.

The Difference Between A Learned Man And An Ignorant One Is The Same As That Between A Living Man And A Corpse.

There Is No Genius Who Hasn't A Touch Of Insanity.

Imagination Is A Sort Of Faint Perception.

Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

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

Meaning Of Life

Nature Makes Nothing Incomplete, And Nothing In Vain.

...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.

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

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

Between Husband And Wife Friendship Seems To Exist By Nature, For Man Is Naturally Disposed To Pairing.

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

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

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

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

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

In General, What Is Written Must Be Easy To Read And Easy To Speak; Which Is The Same.

If The Poor, For Example, Because They Are More In Number, Divide Among Themselves The Property Of The Rich,- Is Not This Unjust? . . This Law Of Confiscation Clearly Cannot Be Just.

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

Actual Knowledge Is Identical With Its Object: In The Individual, Potential Knowledge Is In Time Prior To Actual Knowledge, But In The Universe As A Whole It Is Not Prior Even In Time. Mind Is Not At One Time Knowing And At Another Not. When Mind Is Set Free From Its Present Conditions It Appears As Just What It Is And Nothing More: This Alone Is Immortal And Eternal (we Do Not, However, Remember Its Former Activity Because, While Mind In This Sense Is Impassible, Mind As Passive Is Destructible), And Without It Nothing Thinks.

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

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

We Make War That We May Live In Peace.

Every Community Is An Association Of Some Kind And Every Community Is Established With A View To Some Good; For Everyone Always Acts In Order To Obtain That Which They Think Good. But, If All Communities Aim At Some Good, The State Or Political Community, Which Is The Highest Of All, And Which Embraces All The Rest, Aims At Good In A Greater Degree Than Any Other, And At The Highest Good.

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.

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

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.

Teaching Is The Highest Form Of Understanding.

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Anything Whose Presence Or Absence Makes No Discernible Difference Is No Essential Part Of The Whole.

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

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.

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.

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

It Is The Repeated Performance Of Just And Temperate Actions That Produces Virtue.

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.

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The Saying Of Protagoras Is Like The Views We Have Mentioned; He Said That Man Is The Measure Of All Things, Meaning Simply That That Which Seems To Each Man Assuredly Is. If This Is So, It Follows That The Same Thing Both Is And Is Not, And Is Bad And Good, And That The Contents Of All Other Opposite Statements Are True, Because Often A Particular Thing Appears Beautiful To Some And Ugly To Others, And That Which Appears To Each Man Is The Measure

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I Will Not Allow The Athenians To Sin Twice Against Philosophy.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because Truth And Justice Are In Their Nature Stronger Than Their Opposites; So That If Decisions Be Made, Not In Conformity To The Rule Of Propriety, It Must Have Been That They Have Been Got The Better Of Through Fault Of The Advocates Themselves: And This Is Deserving Reprehension.

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

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.

The Ensouled Is Distinguished From The Unsouled By Its Being Alive. Now Since Being Alive Is Spoken Of In Many Ways, Even If Only One Of These Is Present, We Say That The Thing Is Alive, If, For Instance, There Is Intellect Or Perception Or Spatial Movement And Rest Or Indeed Movement Connected With Nourishment And Growth And Decay. It Is For This Reason That All The Plants Are Also Held To Be Alive . . .

So It Is Clear That The Search For What Is Just Is A Search For The Mean; For The Law Is The Mean.

Patience S Bitter, But It's Fruit Is Sweet.

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.

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

Every Virtue Is A Mean Between Two Extremes, Each Of Which Is A Vice.

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.

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.

It Will Contribute Towards One's Object, Who Wishes To Acquire A Facility In The Gaining Of Knowledge, To Doubt Judiciously.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Choice, 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.

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.

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

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

Perception Starts With The Eye.

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

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.

The Intention Makes The Crime.

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.

Man Is The Metre Of All Things, The Hand Is The Instrument Of Instruments, And The Mind Is The Form Of Forms.

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

The Continuum Is That Which Is Divisible Into Indivisibles That Are Infinitely Divisible.

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.

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

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.

For The Lesser Evil Is Reckoned A Good In Comparison With The Greater Evil, Since The Lesser Evil Is Rather To Be Chosen Than The Greater. .

Since Music Has So Much To Do With The Molding Of Character, It Is Necessary That We Teach It To Our Children.

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

The Citizens Begin By Giving Up Some Part Of The Constitution, And So With Greater Ease The Government Change Something Else Which Is A Little More Important, Until They Have Undermined The Whole Fabric Of The State.

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.

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

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

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

That Which Is Common To The Greatest Number Has The Least Care Bestowed Upon It

Democracy Is When The Indigent, And Not The Men Of Property, Are The Rulers.

Happiness Is The Reward Of Virtue.

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

One Who Faces And Who Fears The Right Things And From The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Time, Posseses Character Worthy Of Our Trust And Admiration.

The Soul Of Animals Is Characterized By Two Faculties, (a) The Faculty Of Discrimination Which Is The Work Of Thought And Sense, And (b) The Faculty Of Originating Local Movement.

Nothing Is What Rocks Dream About

Happiness Depends Upon Ourselves.

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

These Two Rational Faculties May Be Designated The Scientific Faculty And The Calculative Faculty Respectively; Since Calculation Is The Same As Deliberation, And Deliberation Is Never Exercised About Things That Are Invariable, So That The Calculative Faculty Is A Separate Part Of The Rational Half Of The Soul.

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.

All Proofs Rest On Premises.

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

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.

For Through Wondering Human Beings Now And In The Beginning Have Been Led To Philosophizing.

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

All That One Gains By Falsehood Is, Not To Be Believed When He Speaks The Truth.

We Must Become Just Be Doing Just Acts.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge. The Young They Keep Out Of Mischief; To The Old They Are A Comfort And Aid In Their Weakness, And Those In The Prime Of Life They Incite To Noble Deeds.

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.

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

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

The 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.

The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Lies In The Heart.

All Men By Nature Desire To Know. An Indication Of This Is The Delight We Take In Our Senses; For Even Apart From Their Usefulness They Are Loved For Themselves...

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.

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.

Each Human Being Is Bred With A Unique Set Of Potentials That Yearn To Be Fulfilled As Surely As The Acorn Yearns To Become The Oak Within It.

He Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy Whereas The Man Of No Virtue Or Ability Is His Own Worst Enemy And Is Afraid Of Solitude.

Although It May Be Difficult In Theory To Know What Is Just And Equal, The Practical Difficulty Of Inducing Those To Forbear Who Can, If They Like, Encroach, Is Far Greater, For The Weaker Are Always Asking For Equality And Justice, But The Stronger Care For None Of These Things.

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

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

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

Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."

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

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.

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

The Trade Of The Petty Usurer Is Hated With Most Reason: It Makes A Profit From Currency Itself, Instead Of Making It From The Process Which Currency Was Meant To Serve. Their Common Characteristic Is Obviously Their Sordid Avarice.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

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

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.

There Are Three Qualifications Required In Those Who Have To Fill The Highest Offices, - (1) First Of All, Loyalty To The Established Constitution; (2) The Greatest Administrative Capacity; (3) Virtue And Justice Of The Kind Proper To Each Form Of Government.

Either A Beast Or A God.

The Eyes Are The Organs Of Temptation, And The Ears Are The Organs Of Instruction.

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.

The Moral Virtues, Then, Are Produced In Us Neither By Nature Nor Against Nature. Nature, Indeed, Prepares In Us The Ground For Their Reception, But Their Complete Formation Is The Product Of Habit.

It Is Clearly Better That Property Should Be Private, But The Use Of It Common; And The Special Business Of The Legislator Is To Create In Men This Benevolent Disposition.

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

There Is An Error Common To Both Oligarchies And To Democracies: In The Latter The Demagogues, When The Multitude Are Above The Law, Are Always Cutting The City In Two By Quarrels With The Rich, Whereas They Should Always Profess To Be Maintaining Their Cause; Just As In Oligarchies The Oligarchs Should Profess To Maintain The Cause Of The People, . .

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

A Promise Made Must Be A Promise Kept.

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.

It Is Not The Possessions But The Desires Of Mankind Which Require To Be Equalized.

Music Directly Represents The Passions Of The Soul. If One Listens To The Wrong Kind Of Music, He Will Become The Wrong Kind Of Person.

"i Was Not Alone When I Was In Goofy Hell"

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

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.

Evils Draw Men Together.

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

...virtue Is Not Merely A State In Conformity With The Right Principle, But One That Implies The Right Principle; And The Right Principle In Moral Conduct Is Prudence.

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.

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

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.

Everybody Loves A Thing More If It Has Cost Him Trouble: For Instance Those Who Have Made Money Love Money More Than Those Who Have Inherited It.

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

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

Emotions Of Any Kind Are Produced By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore By Music A Man Becomes Accustomed To Feeling The Right Emotions; Music Has Thus The Power To Form Character, And The Various Kinds Of Music Based On Various Modes May Be Distinguished By Their Effects On Character.

Evil Draws Men Together.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

The Light Of The Day Is Followed By Night, As A Shadow Follows A Body.

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.

When We Look At The Matter From Another Point Of View, Great Caution Would Seem To Be Required. For The Habit Of Lightly Changing The Laws Is An Evil, And, When The Advantage Is Small, Some Errors Both Of Lawgivers And Rulers Had Better Be Left; The Citizen Will Not Gain So Much By Making The Change As He Will Lose By The Habit Of Disobedience.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

... There Must Then Be A Principle Of Such A Kind That Its Substance Is Activity.

Words Of Wisdom

So Virtue Is A Purposive Disposition, Lying In A Mean That Is Relative To Us And Determined By A Rational Principle, And By That Which A Prudent Man Would Use To Determine It. It Is A Mean Between Two Kinds Of Vice, One Of Excess And The Other Of Deficiency.

It Concerns Us To Know The Purposes We Seek In Life, For Then, Like Archers Aiming At A Definite Mark, We Shall Be More Likely To Attain What We Want.

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

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

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.

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

Saying The Words That Come From Knowledge Is No Sign Of Having It.

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

A Poet's Object Is Not To Tell What Actually Happened But What Could Or Would Happen Either Probably Or Inevitably.... For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Scientific And Serious Than History, Because Poetry Tends To Give General Truths While History Gives Particular Facts.

Gentleness Is The Ability To Bear Reproaches And Slights With Moderation, And Not To Embark On Revenge Quickly, And Not To Be Easily Provoked To Anger, But Be Free From Bitterness And Contentiousness, Having Tranquility And Stability In The Spirit.

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

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

All Friendly Feelings Toward Others Come From The Friendly Feelings A Person Has For Himself.

Mothers Are Fonder Than Fathers Of Their Children Because They Are More Certain They Are Their Own.

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

We Can't Learn Without Pain.

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.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

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.

Excellence Is Never An Accident. It Is Always The Result Of High Intention, Sincere Effort, And Intelligent Execution; It Represents The Wise Choice Of Many Alternatives - Choice, Not Chance, Determines Your Destiny.

Those Who Have Been Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, And The Arts Have All Had Tendencies Toward Melancholia.

The Physician Heals, Nature Makes Well.

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

The End Of Labor Is To Gain Leisure.

Suffering Becomes Beautiful When Anyone Bears Great Calamities With Cheerfulness, Not Through Insensibility But Through Greatness Of Mind.

All Communication Must Lead To Change

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