Background Image

...

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

-Aristotle

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In The Case Of

Aristotle

...

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

Views: 52494

Topic

More From Aristotle

We Have Divided The Virtues Of The Soul Into Two Groups, The Virtues Of The Character And The Virtues Of The Intellect.

Education And Morals Make The Good Man, The Good Statesman, The Good Ruler.

And Yet The True Creator Is Necessity, Which Is The Mother Of Invention.

He Is Courageous Who Endures And Fears The Right Thing, For The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Times.

The Beginning Of Reform Is Not So Much To Equalize Property As To Train The Noble Sort Of Natures Not To Desire More, And To Prevent The Lower From Getting More.

The Virtue As The Art Consecrates Itself Constantly To What's Difficult To Do, And The Harder The Task, The Shinier The Success.

There Are, Then, Three States Of Mind ... Two Vices--that Of Excess, And That Of Defect; And One Virtue--the Mean; And All These Are In A Certain Sense Opposed To One Another; For The Extremes Are Not Only Opposed To The Mean, But Also To One Another; And The Mean Is Opposed To The Extremes.

The Best Way To Teach Morality Is To Make It A Habit With Children.

Equality Is Of Two Kinds, Numerical And Proportional; By The First I Mean Sameness Of Equality In Number Or Size; By The Second, Equality Of Ratios.

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.

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.

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

If The Hammer And The Shuttle Could Move Themselves, Slavery Would Be Unnecessary.

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

There Is A Foolish Corner In The Brain Of The Wisest Man.

Why Is It That All Those Who Have Become Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, Or The Arts Are Clearly Of An Atrabilious Temperament And Some Of Them To Such An Extent As To Be Affected By Diseases Caused By Black Bile?

A Courageous Person Is One Who Faces Fearful Things As He Ought And As Reason Directs For The Sake Of What Is Noble.

Courage Is The First Virtue That Makes All Other Virtues Possible.

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.

Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.

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.

Nature Of Man Is Not What He Was Born As, But What He Is Born For.

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...

While Fiction Is Often Impossible, It Should Not Be Implausible.

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.

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

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 Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

He Then Alone Will Strictly Be Called Brave Who Is Fearless Of A Noble Death, And Of All Such Chances As Come Upon Us With Sudden Death In Their Train.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

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.

Everything Necessarily Is Or Is Not, And Will Be Or Will Not Be; But One Cannot Divide And Say That One Or The Other Is Necessary.i Mean, For Example: It Is Necessary For There To Be Or Not To Be A Sea-battle Tomorrow; But It Is Not Necessary For A Sea-battle To Take Place Tomorrow, Or For One Not To Take Place--though It Is Necessary For One To Take Place Or Not To Take Place.

Our Feelings Towards Our Friends Reflect Our Feelings Towards Ourselves.

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.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

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

When Their Adventures Do Not Succeed, However, They Run Away; But It Was The Mark Of A Brave Man To Face Things That Are, And Seem, Terrible For A Man, Because It Is Noble To Do So And Disgraceful Not To Do So.

Self-sufficiency Is Both A Good And An Absolute Good.

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

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

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

Those That Deem Politics Beneath Their Dignity Are Doomed To Be Governed By Those Of Lesser Talents.

Happiness Seems To Require A Modicum Of External Prosperity.

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.

[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.

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

Some Things The Legislator Must Find Ready To His Hand In A State, Others He Must Provide. And Therefore We Can Only Say: May Our State Be Constituted In Such A Manner As To Be Blessed With The Goods Of Which Fortune Disposes (for We Acknowledge Her Power): Whereas Virtue And Goodness In The State Are Not A Matter Of Chance But The Result Of Knowledge And Purpose. A City Can Be Virtuous Only When The Citizens Who Have A Share In The Government Are Virtuous, And In Our State All The Citizens Share In The Government.

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.

Excellence Or Virtue Is A Settled Disposition Of The Mind That Determines Our Choice Of Actions And Emotions And Consists Essentially In Observing The Mean Relative To Us ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Which Depends On Excess And That Which Depends On Defect.

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

Character May Almost Be Called The Most Effective Means Of Persuasion.

He Who Is To Be A Good Ruler Must Have First Been Ruled.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

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

The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Lies In The Heart.

Happiness Lies In Virtuous Activity, And Perfect Happiness Lies In The Best Activity, Which Is Contemplative

You'll Understand What Life Is If You Think About The Act Of Dying. When I Die, How Will I Be Different From The Way I Am Right Now? In The First Moments After Death, My Body Will Be Scarcely Different In Physical Terms Than It Was In The Last Seconds Of Life, But I Will No Longer Move, No Longer Sense, Nor Speak, Nor Feel, Nor Care. It's These Things That Are Life. At That Moment, The Psyche Takes Flight In The Last Breath.

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

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.

For Nature By The Same Cause, Provided It Remain In The Same Condition, Always Produces The Same Effect, So That Either Coming-to-be Or Passing-away Will Always Result.

Happiness Depends Upon Ourselves.

That Which Is Common To The Greatest Number Has The Least Care Bestowed Upon It. Every One Thinks Chiefly Of His Own, Hardly At All Of The Common Interest; And Only When He Is Himself Concerned As An Individual. For Besides Other Considerations, Everybody Is More Inclined To Neglect The Duty Which He Expects Another To Fulfill.

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

Hope Is A Waking Dream.

Men Become Richer Not Only By Increasing Their Existing Wealth But Also By Decreasing Their Expenditure.

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

Injustice Results As Much From Treating Unequals Equally As From Treating Equals Unequally.

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

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.

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

Happiness Is Activity.

Adventure Is Worthwhile.

Love Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

He Who Cannot Be A Good Follower Cannot Be A Good Leader.

Again, It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways (for Evil Belongs To The Class Of The Unlimited And Good To That Of The Limited), While To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way (for Which Reason Also One Is Easy And The Other Difficult—to Miss The Mark Easy, To Hit It Difficult); For These Reasons Also, Then, Excess And Defect Are Characteristic Of Vice, And The Mean Of Virtue; For Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

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.

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

The Best Tragedies Are Conflicts Between A Hero And His Destiny.

Friendship Is Communion.

But Also Philosophy Is Not About Perceptible Substances They, You See, Are Prone To Destruction.

Words Of Wisdom

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

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.

No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.

The Soul Is The Cause Or Source Of The Living Body. The Terms Cause And Source Have Many Senses. But The Soul Is The Cause Of Its Body Alike In All Three Senses Which We Explicitly Recognize. It Is (a) The Source Or Origin Of Movement, It Is (b) The End, It Is (c) The Essence Of The Whole Living Body.

It Is Unbecoming For Young Men To Utter Maxims.

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Characteristics

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.

The Best Friend Is He That, When He Wishes A Person's Good, Wishes It For That Person's Own Sake.

Well Begun Is Half Done.

If Happiness, Then, Is Activity Expressing Virtue, It Is Reasonable For It To Express The Supreme Virtue, Which Will Be The Virtueof The Best Thing.

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

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

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.

All Earthquakes And Disasters Are Warnings; There’s Too Much Corruption In The World

We Must Not Listen To Those Who Advise Us 'being Men To Think Human Thoughts, And Being Mortal To Think Mortal Thoughts' But Must Put On Immortality As Much As Possible And Strain Every Nerve To Live According To That Best Part Of Us, Which, Being Small In Bulk, Yet Much More In Its Power And Honour Surpasses All Else.

Once More: There Are Three Offices According To Whose Directions The Highest Magistrates Are Chosen In Certain States - Guardians Of The Law, Probuli, Councilors - Of These, The Guardians Of The Law Are An Aristocratical, The Probuli An Oligarchical, The Council A Democratical Institution.

To Thales The Primary Question Was Not What Do We Know, But How Do We Know It.

No One Will Dare Maintain That It Is Better To Do Injustice Than To Bear It.

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

The Beginning, As The Proverb Says, Is Half The Whole.

Money Was Established For Exchange, But Interest Causes It To Be Reproduced By Itself. Therefore This Way Of Earning Money Is Greatly In Conflict With The Natural Law.

Men Must Be Able To Engage In Business And Go To War, But Leisure And Peace Are Better; They Must Do What Is Necessary And Indeed What Is Useful, But What Is Honorable Is Better. On Such Principles Children And Persons Of Every Age Which Requires Education Should Be Trained.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

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

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

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Only Of A Complete Action, But Of Events Inspiring Fear And Pity. Such An Effect Is Best Produced When The Events Come On Us By Surprise; And The Effect Is Heightened When, At The Same Time, They Follow As Cause And Effect. The Tragic Wonder Will Then Be Great Than If They Happened Of Themselves Or By Accident; For Even Coincidences Are Most Striking When They Have An Air Of Design.

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.

A Proper Wife Should Be As Obedient As A Slave... The Female Is A Female By Virtue Of A Certain Lack Of Qualities - A Natural Defectiveness.

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

A Person's Life Persuades Better Than His Word.

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

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

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

I Say That Habit's But A Long Practice, Friend, And This Becomes Men's Nature In The End.

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.

Laws, When Good, Should Be Supreme; And That The Magistrate Or Magistrates Should Regulate Those Matters Only On Which The Laws Are Unable To Speak With Precision Owing To The Difficulty Of Any General Principle Embracing All Particulars.

Between Friends There Is No Need Of Justice.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

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.

Politicians Also Have No Leisure, Because They Are Always Aiming At Something Beyond Political Life Itself, Power And Glory, Or Happiness.

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.

The Specific Excellence Of Verbal Expression In Poetry Is To Be Clear Without Being Low.

The Fool Tells Me His Reason; The Wise Man Persuades Me With My Own.

He Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.

Women Should Marry When They Are About Eighteen Years Of Age, And Men At Seven And Thirty; Then They Are In The Prime Of Life, And The Decline In The Powers Of Both Will Coincide.

Thus It Is Thought That Justice Is Equality; And So It Is, But Not For All Persons, Only For Those That Are Equal. Inequality Also Is Thought To Be Just; And So It Is, But Not For All, Only For The Unequal. We Make Bad Mistakes If We Neglect This For Whom When We Are Deciding What Is Just. The Reason Is That We Are Making Judgements About Ourselves, And People Are Generally Bad Judges Where Their Own Interests Are Involved.

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

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

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor. This Alone Cannot Be Imparted By Another; It Is The Mark Of Genius, For To Make Good Metaphors Implies An Eye For Resemblances.

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

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.

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.

Plato Is My Friend, But Truth Is A Better Friend.

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

Friendship Is A Thing Most Necessary To Life, Since Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though Possessed Of All Other Advantages.

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.

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.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

We Should Behave To Our Friends As We Would Wish Our Friends Behave To Us

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

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.

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

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

Metaphysics Is Universal And Is Exclusively Concerned With Primary Substance. ... And Here We Will Have The Science To Study That Which Is, Both In Its Essence And In The Properties Which It Has.

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.

. . . The Man Is Free, We Say, Who Exists For His Own Sake And Not For Another's.

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.

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered.

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

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 Vices Respectively Fall Short Of Or Exceed What Is Right In Both Passions And Actions, While Virtue Both Finds And Chooses That Which Is Intermediate.

If Liberty And Equality, As Is Thought By Some, Are Chiefly To Be Found In Democracy, They Will Be Best Attained When All Persons Alike Share In Government To The Utmost.

Democracies Have

Happiness Is At Once The Best, The Noblest, And The Pleasantest Of Things.

Nicomachean Ethics

Obstinate People Can Be Divided Into The Opinionated, The Ignorant, And The Boorish.

And This Activity Alone Would Seem To Be Loved For Its Own Sake; For Nothing Arises From It Apart From The Contemplating, While From Practical Activities We Gain More Or Less Apart From The Action. And Happiness Is Thought To Depend On Leisure; For We Are Busy That We May Have Leisure, And Make War That We May Live In Peace.

The Wise Man Does Not Expose Himself Needlessly To Danger, Since There Are Few Things For Which He Cares Sufficiently; But He Is Willing, In Great Crises, To Give Even His Life - Knowing That Under Certain Conditions It Is Not Worthwhile To Live.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Those Whose Days Are Consumed In The Low Pursuits Of Avarice, Or The Gaudy Frivolties Of Fashion, Unobservant Of Nature's Lovelinessof Demarcation, Nor On Which Side Thereof An Intermediate Form Should Lie.

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

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.

...happiness Is An Activity And A Complete Utilization Of Virtue, Not Conditionally But Absolutely.

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

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions.

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.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

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 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.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

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

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

A Flatterer Is A Friend Who Is Your Inferior, Or Pretends To Be So.

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

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.

Anyone Who Has No Need Of Anybody But Himself Is Either A Beast Or A God.

When We Deliberate It Is About Means And Not Ends.

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

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

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

Madness Is Badness Of Spirit, When One Seeks Profit From All Sources.

Our Virtues Are Voluntary (and In Fact We Are In A Sense Ourselves Partly The Cause Of Our Moral Dispositions, And It Is Our Having A Certain Character That Makes Us Set Up An End Of A Certain Kind), It Follows That Our Vices Are Voluntary Also; They Are Voluntary In The Same Manner As Our Virtues.

The Word Is A Sign Or Symbol Of The Impressions Or Affections Of The Soul.

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

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.

...one Greek City State Had A Fundamental Law: Anyone Proposing Revisions To The Constitution Did So With A Noose Around His Neck. If His Proposal Lost He Was Instantly Hanged.

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

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

Every Wicked Man Is In Ignorance As To What He Ought To Do, And From What To Abstain, And It Is Because Of Error Such As This That Men Become Unjust And, In A Word, Wicked.

Trending Author

Alfred Whitney Griswold

Category