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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.

-Aristotle

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In The Laws It

Aristotle

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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.

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And So Long As They Were At War, Their Power Was Preserved, But When They Had Attained Empire They Fell, For Of The Arts Of Peace They Knew Nothing, And Had Never Engaged In Any Employment Higher Than War.

For One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

So, If We Must Give A General Formula Applicable To All Kinds Of Soul, We Must Describe It As The First Actuality [entelechy] Of Anatural Organized Body.

Doubt Is The Beginning Of Wisdom

There Is An Ideal Of Excellence For Any Particular Craft Or Occupation; Similarly There Must Be An Excellent That We Can Achieve As Human Beings. That Is, We Can Live Our Lives As A Whole In Such A Way That They Can Be Judged Not Just As Excellent In This Respect Or In That Occupation, But As Excellent, Period. Only When We Develop Our Truly Human Capacities Sufficiently To Achieve This Human Excellent Will We Have Lives Blessed With Happiness.

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

Anger Is Always Concerned With Individuals, ... Whereas Hatred Is Directed Also Against Classes: We All Hate Any Thief And Any Informer. Moreover, Anger Can Be Cured By Time; But Hatred Cannot. The One Aims At Giving Pain To Its Object, The Other At Doing Him Harm; The Angry Man Wants His Victim To Feel; The Hater Does Not Mind Whether They Feel Or Not.

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

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

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.

Man Is A Goal-seeking Animal. His Life Only Has Meaning If He Is Reaching Out And Striving For His Goals.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

...in This Way The Structure Of The Universe- I Mean, Of The Heavens And The Earth And The Whole World- Was Arranged By One Harmony Through The Blending Of The Most Opposite Principles.

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.

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.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because The True And The Just Are Naturally Superior To Their Opposites, So That, If Decisions Are Improperly Made, They Must Owe Their Defeat To Their Own Advocates; Which Is Reprehensible. Further, In Dealing With Certain Persons, Even If We Possessed The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, We Should Not Find It Easy To Persuade Them By The Employment Of Such Knowledge. For Scientific Discourse Is Concerned With Instruction, But In The Case Of Such Persons Instruction Is Impossible.

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

We Are What We Continually Do.

Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.

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.

For Any Two Portions Of Fire, Small Or Great, Will Exhibit The Same Ratio Of Solid To Void; But The Upward Movement Of The Greater Is Quicker Than That Of The Less, Just As The Downward Movement Of A Mass Of Gold Or Lead, Or Of Any Other Body Endowed With Weight, Is Quicker In Proportion To Its Size.

A Goal Gets Us Motivated,while A Good Habit Keeps Us Stay Motivated.

What We Know Is Not Capable Of Being Otherwise; Of Things Capable Of Being Otherwise We Do Not Know, When They Have Passed Outsideour Observation, Whether They Exist Or Not. Therefore The Object Of Knowledge Is Of Necessity. Therefore It Is Eternal; For Things That Are Of Necessity In The Unqualified Sense Are All Eternal; And Things That Are Eternal Are Ungenerated And Imperishable.

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

For Knowing Is Spoken Of In Three Ways: It May Be Either Universal Knowledge Or Knowledge Proper To The Matter In Hand Or Actualising Such Knowledge; Consequently Three Kinds Of Error Also Are Possible.

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

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

A Person's Life Persuades Better Than His Word.

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

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

For Pleasure Is A State Of Soul, And To Each Man That Which He Is Said To Be A Lover Of Is Pleasant.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Shape Of The Heaven Is Of Necessity Spherical; For That Is The Shape Most Appropriate To Its Substance And Also By Nature Primary.

The Laws Are, And Ought To Be, Relative To The Constitution, And Not The Constitution To The Laws. A Constitution Is The Organization Of Offices In A State, And Determines What Is To Be The Governing Body, And What Is The End Of Each Community. But Laws Are Not To Be Confounded With The Principles Of The Constitution; They Are The Rules According To Which The Magistrates Should Administer The State, And Proceed Against Offenders.

How Strange It Is That Socrates, After Having Made The Children Common, Should Hinder Lovers From Carnal Intercourse Only, But Should Permit Love And Familiarities Between Father And Son Or Between Brother And Brother, Than Which Nothing Can Be More Unseemly, Since Even Without Them Love Of This Sort Is Improper. How Strange, Too, To Forbid Intercourse For No Other Reason Than The Violence Of The Pleasure, As Though The Relationship Of Father And Son Or Of Brothers With One Another Made No Difference.

Goodness Is To Do Good To The Deserving And Love The Good And Hate The Wicked, And Not To Be Eager To Inflict Punishment Or Take Vengeance, But To Be Gracious And Kindly And Forgiving.

To Love Someone Is To Identify With Them.

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.

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.

Equity Is That Idea Of Justice Which Contravenes The Written Law.

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

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.

Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

For Legislators Make The Citizens Good By Forming Habits In Them, And This Is The Wish Of Every Legislator, And Those Who Do Not Effect It Miss Their Mark, And It Is In This That A Good Constitution Differs From A Bad One.

Those That Know, Do. Those That Understand, Teach.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

What Is The Highest Good In All Matters Of Action? To The Name, There Is Almost Complete Agreement; For Uneducated And Educated Alike Call It Happiness, And Make Happiness Identical With The Good Life And Successful Living. They Disagree, However, About The Meaning Of Happiness.

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.

The Knowledge Of The Soul Admittedly Contributes Greatly To The Advance Of Truth In General, And, Above All, To Our Understanding Of Nature, For The Soul Is In Some Sense The Principle Of Animal Life.

The Soul Consists Of Two Parts, One Irrational And The Other Capable Of Reason. (whether These Two Parts Are Really Distinct In The Sense That The Parts Of The Body Or Of Any Other Divisible Whole Are Distinct, Or Whether Though Distinguishable In Thought As Two They Are Inseparable In Reality, Like The Convex And Concave Of A Curve, Is A Question Of No Importance For The Matter In Hand.)

That In The Soul Which Is Called The Mind Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing.

The Most Beautiful Colors Laid On At Random, Give Less Pleasure Than A Black-and-white Drawing.

Black And White

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.

Something Is Infinite If, Taking It Quantity By Quantity, We Can Always Take Something Outside.

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

Through Discipline Comes Freedom.

It Is Clear That There Is Some Difference Between Ends: Some Ends Are Energeia [energy], While Others Are Products Which Are Additional To The Energeia.

The Happy Man . . . Will Be Always Or At Least Most Often Employed In Doing And Contemplating The Things That Are In Conformity With Virtue. And He Will Bear Changes Of Fortunes Most Nobly, And With Perfect Propriety In Every Way.

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.

Nature Does Nothing Without A Purpose. In Children May Be Observed The Traces And Seeds Of What Will One Day Be Settled Psychological Habits, Though Psychologically A Child Hardly Differs For The Time Being From An Animal.

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 Intention Makes The Crime.

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.

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

For Suppose That Every Tool We Had Could Perform Its Task, Either At Our Bidding Or Itself Perceiving The Need, And If-like The Statues Made By Dædalus Or The Tripods Of Hephæstus, Of Which The Poet Says That "self-moved They Enter The Assembly Of The Gods" - Shuttles In A Loom Could Fly To And Fro And A Plectrum Play A Lyre All Self-moved, Then Master-craftsmen Would Have No Need Of Servants Nor Masters Of Slaves.

Wickedness Is Nourished By Lust.

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.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

Happiness Is A Thing Honored And Perfect. This Seems To Be Borne Out By The Fact That It Is A First Principle Or Starting-point, Since All Other Things That All Men Do Are Done For Its Sake; And That Which Is The First Principle And Cause Of Things Good We Agree To Be Something Honorable And Divine.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

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.

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

Wicked Me Obey From Fear; Good Men,from Love.

It Belongs To Small-mindedness To Be Unable To Bear Either Honor Or Dishonor, Either Good Fortune Or Bad, But To Be Filled With Conceit When Honored And Puffed Up By Trifling Good Fortune, And To Be Unable To Bear Even The Smallest Dishonor And To Deem Any Chance Failure A Great Misfortune, And To Be Distressed And Annonyed At Everything. Moreover The Small-minded Man Is The Sort Of Person To Call All Slights An Insult And Dishonor, Even Those That Are Due To Ignorance Or Forgetfulness. Small-mindedness Is Accompanied By Pettiness, Querulousness, Pessimism And Self-abasement.

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

He Who Thus Considers Things In Their First Growth And Origin ... Will Obtain The Clearest View Of Them.

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.

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.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions.

That In The Soul Which Is Called Mind (by Mind I Mean That Whereby The Soul Thinks And Judges) Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing. For This Reason It Cannot Reasonably Be Regarded As Blended With The Body

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.

A State Is Not A Mere Society, Having A Common Place, Established For The Prevention Of Mutual Crime And For The Sake Of Exchange. Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Mere Companionship.

We Ought To Be Able To Persuade On Opposite Sides Of A Question; As Also We Ought In The Case Of Arguing By Syllogism: Not That We Should Practice Both, For It Is Not Right To Persuade To What Is Bad; But In Order That The Bearing Of The Case May Not Escape Us, And That When Another Makes An Unfair Use Of These Reasonings, We May Be Able To Solve Them.

Property Should Be In A Certain Sense Common, But, As A General Rule, Private; For, When Every One Has A Distinct Interest, Men Will Not Complain Of One Another, And They Will Make More Progress, Because Every One Will Be Attending To His Own Business.

When We Deliberate It Is About Means And Not Ends.

We, On The Other Hand, Must Take For Granted That The Things That Exist By Nature Are, Either All Or Some Of Them, In Motion.

Great Is The Good Fortune Of A State In Which The Citizens Have A Moderate And Sufficient Property.

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

In The Many Forms Of Government Which Have Sprung Up There Has Always Been An Acknowledgement Of Justice And Proportionate Equality, Although Mankind Fail In Attaining Them, As Indeed I Have Already Explained. Democracy, For Example, 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 The Characteristic Of The Magnanimous Man To Ask No Favor But To Be Ready To Do Kindness To Others.

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

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

The Purpose Of Art Is To Represent The Meaning Of Things. This Represents The True Reality, Not External Aspects.

The Right Constitutions, Three In Number- Kingship, Aristocracy, And Polity- And The Deviations From These, Likewise Three In Number - Tyranny From Kingship, Oligarchy From Aristocracy, Democracy From Polity.

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

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be, And Similarly Everything That Depends On Art Or Any Rational Cause, And Especially If It Depends On The Best Of All Causes.

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

He Who Sees Things Grow From The Beginning Will Have The Best View Of Them.

We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence. But They Hesitate, Waiting For The Other Fellow To Make The First Move-and He, In Turn, Waits For You.

The Educated Differ From The Uneducated As Much As The Living From The Dead.

A Gentleman Is Not Disturbed By Anything

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

Happiness Is The Settling Of The Soul Into Its Most Appropriate Spot.

The Error Of Socrates Must Be Attributed To The False Notion Of Unity From Which He Starts. Unity There Should Be, Both Of The Family And Of The State, But In Some Respects Only. For There Is A Point At Which A State May Attain Such A Degree Of Unity As To Be No Longer A State, Or At Which, Without Actually Ceasing To Exist, It Will Become An Inferior State, Like Harmony Passing Into Unison, Or Rhythm Which Has Been Reduced To A Single Foot. The State, As I Was Saying, Is A Plurality Which Should Be United And Made Into A Community By Education

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

The Self-indulgent Man Craves For All Pleasant Things... And Is Led By His Appetite To Choose These At The Cost Of Everything Else.

The Antidote For Fifty Enemies Is One Friend.

If You Would Understand Anything, Observe Its Beginning And Its Development

But The Virtues We Get By First Exercising Them, As Also Happens In The Case Of The Arts As Well. For The Things We Have To Learn Before We Can Do Them, We Learn By Doing Them, E.g. Men Become Builders By Building And Lyre Players By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

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.

It Is The Active Exercise Of Our Faculties In Conformity With Virtue That Causes Happiness, And The Opposite Activities Its Opposite.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

... The Science We Are After Is Not About Mathematicals Either None Of Them, You See, Is Separable.

Words Of Wisdom

Men Are Divided Between Those Who Are As Thrifty As If They Would Live Forever, And Those Who Are As Extravagant As If They Were Going To Die The Next Day.

There Also Appears To Be Another Element In The Soul, Which, Though Irrational, Yet In A Manner Participates In Rational Principle.

The Bad Man Is Continually At War With, And In Opposition To, Himself.

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 Held To Be Most Closely Connected With Virtue, And To Be A Better Token Of Our Character Than Are Even Our Acts.

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

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.

Tools May Be Animate As Well As Inanimate; For Instance, A Ship's Captain Uses A Lifeless Rudder, But A Living Man For Watch; For A Servant Is, From The Point Of View Of His Craft, Categorized As One Of Its Tools. So Any Piece Of Property Can Be Regarded As A Tool Enabling A Man To Live, And His Property Is An Assemblage Of Such Tools; A Slave Is A Sort Of Living Piece Of Property; And Like Any Other Servant Is A Tool In Charge Of Other Tools.

If Men Think That A Ruler Is Religious And Has A Reverence For The Gods, They Are Less Afraid Of Suffering Injustice At His Hands.

For Imagining Lies Within Our Power Whenever We Wish . . . But In Forming Opinons We Are Not Free . . .

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

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.

Poetry Demands A Man With A Special Gift For It, Or Else One With A Touch Of Madness In Him.

Women Who Are With Child Should Be Careful Of Themselves; They Should Take Exercise And Have A Nourishing Diet. The First Of These Prescriptions The Legislator Will Easily Carry Into Effect By Requiring That They Should Take A Walk Daily To Some Temple, Where They Can Worship The Gods Who Preside Over Birth. Their Minds, However, Unlike Their Bodies, They Ought To Keep Quiet, For The Offspring Derive Their Natures From Their Mothers As Plants Do From Earth.

A Vivid Image Compels The Whole Body To Follow.

True Happiness Comes From Gaining Insight And Growing Into Your Best Possible Self. Otherwise All You're Having Is Immediate Gratification Pleasure, Which Is Fleeting And Doesn't Grow You As A Person.

Nor Need It Cause Surprise That Things Disagreeable To The Good Man Should Seem Pleasant To Some Men; For Mankind Is Liable To Many Corruptions And Diseases, And The Things In Question Are Not Really Pleasant, But Only Pleasant To These Particular Persons, Who Are In A Condition To Think Them So.

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

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.

The Line Has Magnitude In One Way, The Plane In Two Ways, And The Solid In Three Ways, And Beyond These There Is No Other Magnitude Because The Three Are All.

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

The Only Way To Achieve True Success Is To Express Yourself Completely In Service To Society.

Express Yourself

All Men, Or Most Men, Wish What Is Noble But Choose What Is Profitable; And While It Is Noble To Render A Service Not With An Eye To Receiving One In Return, It Is Profitable To Receive One. One Ought Therefore, If One Can, To Return The Equivalent Of Services Received, And To Do So Willingly; For One Ought Not To Make A Man One's Friend If One Is Unwilling To Return His Favors.

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

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

Men Agree That Justice In The Abstract Is Proportion, But They Differ In That Some Think That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely, Others That If They Are Unequal In Any Respect They Should Be Unequal In All. The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

No One Would Choose A Friendless Existence On Condition Of Having All The Other Things In The World.

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

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.

No One Who Desires To Become Good Will Become Good Unless He Does Good Things.

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

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways . . . 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).

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.

To Be Angry Is Easy. But To Be Angry With The Right Man At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, That Is Not Easy.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

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

The Only Stable State Is The One In Which All Men Are Equal Before The Law.

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

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 Physician Heals, Nature Makes Well.

Should A Man Live Underground, And There Converse With The Works Of Art And Mechanism, And Should Afterwards Be Brought Up Into The Open Day, And See The Several Glories Of The Heaven And Earth, He Would Immediately Pronounce Them The Work Of Such A Being As We Define God To Be.

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

Inferiors Revolt In Order That They May Be Equal, And Equals That They May Be Superior. Such Is The State Of Mind Which Creates Revolutions.

He Who Is By Nature Not His Own But Another's Man Is By Nature A Slave.

To Leave The Number Of Births Unrestricted, As Is Done In Most States, Inevitably Causes Poverty Among The Citizens, And Poverty Produces Crime And Faction.

[this Element], The Seat Of The Appetites And Of Desire In General, Does In A Sense Participate In Principle, As Being Amenable And Obedient To It

Wit Is Cultured Insolence.

Men Are Swayed More By Fear Than By Reverence.

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.

In Part, Art Completes What Nature Cannot Elaborate; And In Part It Imitates Nature.

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.

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

The Good Citizen Need Not Of Necessity Possess The Virtue Which Makes A Good Man.

Emotions Of Any Kind Can Be Evoked By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore Music Has The Power To Form Character.

It [justice] Is Complete Virtue In The Fullest Sense, Because It Is The Active Exercise Of Complete Virtue; And It Is Complete Because Its Possessor Can Exercise It In Relation To Another Person, And Not Only By Himself.

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers.

Nature Creates Nothing Without A Purpose.

... The Good For Man Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, Or If There Are More Kinds Of Virtue Than One, In Accordance With The Best And Most Perfect Kind.

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

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

The Ultimate Value Of Life Depends Upon Awareness And The Power Of Contemplation Rather Than Upon Mere Survival.

For That Which Has Become Habitual, Becomes As It Were Natural.

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.

Comedy Has Had No History, Because It Was Not At First Treated Seriously.

No One Finds Fault With Defects Which Are The Result Of Nature.

The Two Qualities Which Chiefly Inspire Regard And Affection Are That A Thing Is Your Own And That It Is Your Only One.

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

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.

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