Background Image

...

If We State The Function Of Man To Be A Certain Kind Of Life, And This To Be An Activity Or Actions Of The Soul Implying A Rational Principle, And The Function Of A Good Man To Be The Good And Noble Performance Of These, And If Any Action Is Well Performed When It Is Performed In Accordance With The Appropriate Excellence Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, And If There Are More Than One Virtue, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.

-Aristotle

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If We State The

Aristotle

...

If We State The Function Of Man To Be A Certain Kind Of Life, And This To Be An Activity Or Actions Of The Soul Implying A Rational Principle, And The Function Of A Good Man To Be The Good And Noble Performance Of These, And If Any Action Is Well Performed When It Is Performed In Accordance With The Appropriate Excellence Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, And If There Are More Than One Virtue, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.

Views: 87501

Topic

More From Aristotle

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

The High-minded Man Does Not Bear Grudges, For It Is Not The Mark Of A Great Soul To Remember Injuries, But To Forget Them.

Neither Should We Forget The Mean, Which At The Present Day Is Lost Sight Of In Perverted Forms Of Government; For Many Practices Which Appear To Be Democratical Are The Ruin Of Democracies, . . Those Who Think 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.

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.

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

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 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

1 Is Not Prime, By Definition. 2 Is An Unnatural Prime, 4 Is An Unnatural Prime, And 6 Is An Unnatural Prime. All Other Natural Primes Cannot Be Unnatural Primes.

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.

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

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

Greed Has No Boundaries

The Student Of Politics Therefore As Well As The Psychologist Must Study The Nature Of The Soul.

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

For What Is The Best Choice For Each Individual Is The Highest It Is Possible For Him To Achieve.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Therefore, The Good Of Man Must Be The End Of The Science Of Politics.

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

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

People Become House Builders Through Building Houses, Harp Players Through Playing The Harp. We Grow To Be Just By Doing Things Which Are Just.

Building Houses

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.

Virtue Is More Clearly Shown In The Performance Of Fine Actions Than In The Non-performance Of Base Ones.

Man First Begins To Philosophize When The Necessities Of Life Are Supplied.

Happiness Itself Is Sufficient Excuse. Beautiful Things Are Right And True; So Beautiful Actions Are Those Pleasing To The Gods. Wise Men Have An Inward Sense Of What Is Beautiful, And The Highest Wisdom Is To Trust This Intuition And Be Guided By It. The Answer To The Last Appeal Of What Is Right Lies Within A Man's Own Breast. Trust Thyself.

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.

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.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

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

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.

Perfect Friendship Is The Friendship Of Men Who Are Good, And Alike In Excellence; For These Wish Well Alike To Each Other Qua Good, And They Are Good In Themselves.

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

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

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.

Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

Not To Get What You Have Set Your Heart On Is Almost As Bad As Getting Nothing At All.

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.

Our Feelings Towards Our Friends Reflect Our Feelings Towards Ourselves.

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.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

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

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

Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

Nicomachean Ethics

The Truly Good And Wise Man Will Bear All Kinds Of Fortune In A Seemly Way, And Will Always Act In The Noblest Manner That The Circumstances Allow.

I Call That Law Universal, Which Is Conformable Merely To Dictates Of Nature; For There Does Exist Naturally An Universal Sense Of Right And Wrong, Which, In A Certain Degree, All Intuitively Divine, Even Should No Intercourse With Each Other, Nor Any Compact Have Existed.

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

Words Of Wisdom

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

In The Laws It Is Maintained That The Best Constitution Is Made Up Of Democracy And Tyranny, Which Are Either Not Constitutions At All, Or Are The Worst Of All. But They Are Nearer The Truth Who Combine Many Forms; For The Constitution Is Better Which Is Made Up Of More Numerous Elements. The Constitution Proposed In The Laws Has No Element Of Monarchy At All; It Is Nothing But Oligarchy And Democracy, Leaning Rather To Oligarchy.

Philosophy Can Make People Sick.

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

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

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

It Is Clear That Those Constitutions Which Aim At The Common Good Are Right, As Being In Accord With Absolute Justice; While Those Which Aim Only At The Good Of The Rulers Are Wrong.

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

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.

Most Men Appear To Think That The Art Of Despotic Government Is Statesmanship, And What Men Affirm To Be Unjust And Inexpedient In Their Own Case They Are Not Ashamed Of Practicing Towards Others; They Demand Just Rule For Themselves, But Where Other Men Are Concerned They Care Nothing About It. Such Behavior Is Irrational; Unless The One Party Is, And The Other Is Not, Born To Serve, In Which Case Men Have A Right To Command, Not Indeed All Their Fellows, But Only Those Who Are Intended To Be Subjects; Just As We Ought Not To Hunt Mankind, Whether For Food Or Sacrifice . .

Selfishness Doesn't Consist In A Love To Yourself, But In A Big Degree Of Such Love.

Marriage Is Like Retiring As A Bachelor And Getting A Sexual Pension. You Don't Have To Work For The Sex Any More, But You Only Get 65% As Much.

Evils Draw Men Together.

Remember That Time Slurs Over Everything, Let All Deeds Fade, Blurs All Writings And Kills All Memories. Exempt Are Only Those Which Dig Into The Hearts Of Men By Love.

Whether If Soul Did Not Exist Time Would Exist Or Not, Is A Question That May Fairly Be Asked; For If There Cannot Be Someone To Count There Cannot Be Anything That Can Be Counted, So That Evidently There Cannot Be Number; For Number Is Either What Has Been, Or What Can Be, Counted.

Greatness Of Spirit Is To Bear Finely Both Good Fourtune And Bad, Honor And Disgrace, And Not To Think Highly Of Luxury Or Attention Or Power Or Victories In Contests, And To Possess A Certain Depth And Magnitude Of Spirit.

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.

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

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

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.

Friends Hold A Mirror Up To Each Other; Through That Mirror They Can See Each Other In Ways That Would Not Otherwise Be Accessible To Them, And It Is This Mirroring That Helps Them Improve Themselves As Persons.

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

A Whole Is That Which Has A Beginning, A Middle And An End.

Happiness Is Essentially Perfect; So That The Happy Man Requires In Addition The Goods Of The Body, External Goods And The Gifts Of Fortune, In Order That His Activity May Not Be Impeded Through Lack Of Them.

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. .

Suppose, Then, That All Men Were Sick Or Deranged, Save One Or Two Of Them Who Were Healthy And Of Right Mind. It Would Then Be The Latter Two Who Would Be Thought To Be Sick And Deranged And The Former Not!

The Probable Is What Usually Happens.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

For Imitation Is Natural To Man From His Infancy. Man Differs From Other Animals Particularly In This, That He Is Imitative, And Acquires His Rudiments Of Knowledge In This Way; Besides, The Delight In It Is Universal.

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.

When You Have Thrown A Stone, You Cannot Afterwards Bring It Back Again, But Nevertheless You Are Responsible For Having Taken Up The Stone And Flung It, For The Origin Of The Act Was Within You. Similarly The Unjust And Profligate Might At The Outset Have Avoided Becoming So, And Therefore They Are So Voluntarily, Although When They Have Become Unjust And Profligate It Is No Longer Open To Them Not To Be So.

Truth Is A Remarkable Thing. We Cannot Miss Knowing Some Of It. But We Cannot Know It Entirely.

The High-minded Man Is Fond Of Conferring Benefits, But It Shames Him To Receive Them.

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

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.

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.

In Revolutions The Occasions May Be Trifling But Great Interest Are At Stake.

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

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

Take The Case Of Just Actions; Just Punishments And Chastisements Do Indeed Spring From A Good Principle, But They Are Good Only Because We Cannot Do Without Them - It Would Be Better That Neither Individuals Nor States Should Need Anything Of The Sort - But Actions Which Aim At Honor And Advantage Are Absolutely The Best. The Conditional Action Is Only The Choice Of A Lesser Evil; Whereas These Are The Foundation And Creation Of Good. A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life.

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.

A Man Is His Own Best Friend; Therefore He Ought To Love Himself Best.

Thinking Is Different From Perceiving And Is Held To Be In Part Imagination, In Part Judgment

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

Whosoever Is Delighted In Solitude Is Either A Wild Beast Or A God.

Think As Wise Men Do, But Speak As The Common People Do.

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.

The Virtue Of The Good Man Is Necessarily The Same As The Virtue Of The Citizen Of The Perfect State.

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

Distance Does Not Break Off The Friendship Absolutely, But Only The Activity Of It.

Long Distance Relationship

Music Directly Imitates The Passions Or States Of The Soul...when One Listens To Music That Imitates A Certain Passion, He Becomes Imbued Withthe Same Passion; And If Over A Long Time He Habitually Listens To Music That Rouses Ignoble Passions, His Whole Character Will Be Shaped To An Ignoble Form.

Man Is By Nature A Social Animal; An Individual Who Is Unsocial Naturally And Not Accidentally Is Either Beneath Our Notice Or More Than Human. Society Is Something That Precedes The Individual. Anyone Who Either Cannot Lead The Common Life Or Is So Self-sufficient As Not To Need To, And Therefore Does Not Partake Of Society, Is Either A Beast Or A God.

Where Some People Are Very Wealthy And Others Have Nothing, The Result Will Be Either Extreme Democracy Or Absolute Oligarchy, Or Despotism Will Come From Either Of Those Excesses.

The Rattle Is A Toy Suited To The Infant Mind, And Education Is A Rattle Or Toy For Children Of Larger Growth.

Have A Definite, Clear, Practical Ideal - A Goal, An Objective.

Project Management

Men Are Marked From The Moment Of Birth To Rule Or Be Ruled.

All Men By Nature Desire Knowledge.

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

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

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

The True Nature Of Anything Is What It Becomes At Its Highest.

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

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

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

For Those Who Possess And Can Wield Arms Are In A Position To Decide Whether The Constitution Is To Continue Or Not

Men Create The Gods After Their Own Images.

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.

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

Special Care Should Be Taken Of The Health Of The Inhabitants, Which Will Depend Chiefly On The Healthiness Of The Locality And Of The Quarter To Which They Are Exposed, And Secondly On The Use Of Pure Water; This Latter Point Is By No Means A Secondary Consideration. For The Elements Which We Use The Most And Oftenest For The Support Of The Body Contribute Most To Health, And Among Those Are Water And Air. Wherefore, In All Wise States, If There Is Want Of Pure Water, And The Supply Is Not All Equally Good, The Drinking Water Ought To Be Separated From That Which Is Used For Other Purposes.

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.

There Are Still Two Forms Besides Democracy And Oligarchy; One Of Them Is Universally Recognized And Included Among The Four Principal Forms Of Government, Which Are Said To Be (1) Monarchy, (2) Oligarchy, (3) Democracy, And (4) The So-called Aristocracy Or Government Of The Best. But There Is Also A Fifth, Which Retains The Generic Name Of Polity Or Constitutional Government.

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

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

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.

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

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

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

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

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

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

Moral Virtue Is ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Of Excess And That Of Defect, And ... It Is No Small Task To Hit The Mean In Each Case, As It Is Not, For Example, Any Chance Comer, But Only The Geometer, Who Can Find The Center Of A Given Circle.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

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

Our Actions Determine Our Dispositions.

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

Philosophy Is The Science Which Considers Truth.

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

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

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.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

To Know What Virtue Is Is Not Enough; We Must Endeavor To Possess And To Practice It, Or In Some Other Manner Actually Ourselves To Become Good.

Most Persons Think That A State In Order To Be Happy Ought To Be Large; But Even If They Are Right, They Have No Idea Of What Is A Large And What A Small State.... To The Size Of States There Is A Limit, As There Is To Other Things, Plants, Animals, Implements; For None Of These Retain Their Natural Power When They Are Too Large Or Too Small, But They Either Wholly Lose Their Nature, Or Are Spoiled.

Some Men Turn Every Quality Or Art Into A Means Of Making Money; This They Conceive To Be The End, And To The Promotion Of The End All Things Must Contribute.

When The Citizens At Large Administer The State For The Common Interest, The Government Is Called By The Generic Name - A Constitution.

Friendship Is Communion.

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

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

Nature Does Nothing In Vain. Therefore, It Is Imperative For Persons To Act In Accordance With Their Nature And Develop Their Latent Talents, In Order To Be Content And Complete.

Think As The Wise Men Think, But Talk Like The Simple People Do.

That The Equalization Of Property Exercises An Influence On Political Society Was Clearly Understood Even By Some Of The Old Legislators. Laws Were Made By Solon And Others Prohibiting An Individual From Possessing As Much Land As He Pleased.

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

The Precepts Of The Law May Be Comprehended Under These Three Points: To Live Honestly, To Hurt No Man Willfully, And To Render Every Man His Due Carefully.

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

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

At First He Who Invented Any Art That Went Beyond The Common Perceptions Of Man Was Naturally Admired By Men, Not Only Because There Was Something Useful In The Inventions, But Because He Was Thought Wise And Superior To The Rest. But As More Arts Were Invented, And Some Were Directed To The Necessities Of Life, Others To Its Recreation, The Inventors Of The Latter Were Always Regarded As Wiser Than The Inventors Of The Former, Because Their Branches Of Knowledge Did Not Aim At Utility.

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

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

In The Perfect State The Good Man Is Absolutely The Same As The Good Citizen; Whereas In Other States The Good Citizen Is Only Good Relatively To His Own Form Of Government.

Nowadays, For The Sake Of The Advantage Which Is To Be Gained From The Public Revenues And From Office, Men Want To Be Always In Office.

In Inventing A Model We May Assume What We Wish, But Should Avoid Impossibilities.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

In Order To Be Effective You Need Not Only Virtue But Also Mental Strength.

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.

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

Whether We Call It Sacrifice, Or Poetry, Or Adventure, It Is Always The Same Voice That Calls.

We Ought, So Far As It Lies Within Our Power, To Aspire To Immortality, And Do All That We Can To Live In Conformity With The Highest That Is Within Us; For Even If It Is Small In Quantity, In Power And Preciousness, It Far Excels All The Rest.

Why Is It That All Men Who Are Outstanding In Philosophy, Poetry Or The Arts Are Melancholic?

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.

All Men Desire By Nature To Know.

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.

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

A Friend Is A Second Self.

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.

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.

It Is Our Actions And The Soul's Active Exercise Of Its Functions That We Posit (as Being Happiness).

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

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

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

Authority Is No Source For Truth.

It Is Clear, Then, That Wisdom Is Knowledge Having To Do With Certain Principles And Causes. But Now, Since It Is This Knowledge That We Are Seeking, We Must Consider The Following Point: Of What Kind Of Principles And Of What Kind Of Causes Is Wisdom The Knowledge?

Words Of Wisdom

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.

All Proofs Rest On Premises.

It Is Through Wonder That Men Now Begin And Originally Began To Philosophize; Wondering In The First Place At Obvious Perplexities, And Then By Gradual Progression Raising Questions About The Greater Matters Too.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

The Family Is The Association Established By Nature For The Supply Of Men's Everyday Wants.

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

Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

It Is Clear, Then, That The Earth Must Be At The Centre And Immovable, Not Only For The Reasons Already Given, But Also Because Heavy Bodies Forcibly Thrown Quite Straight Upward Return To The Point From Which They Started, Even If They Are Thrown To An Infinite Distance. From These Considerations Then It Is Clear That The Earth Does Not Move And Does Not Lie Elsewhere Than At The Centre.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

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

Sacrifice To God

The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

As For The Story, Whether The Poet Takes It Ready Made Or Constructs It For Himself, He Should First Sketch Its General Outline, And Then Fill In The Episodes And Amplify In Detail.

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

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.

Concerning The Generation Of Animals Akin To Them, As Hornets And Wasps, The Facts In All Cases Are Similar To A Certain Extent, But Are Devoid Of The Extraordinary Features Which Characterize Bees; This We Should Expect, For They Have Nothing Divine About Them As The Bees Have.

Prosperity Makes Friends And Adversity Tries Them. A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies

Trending Author

Jean-Luc Godard

Andie MacDowell

Category