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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.

-Aristotle

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Laws, When Good, Should

Aristotle

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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.

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The Honors And Rewards Fall To Those Who Show Their Good Qualities In Action.

In A Democracy The Poor Will Have More Power Than The Rich, Because There Are More Of Them, And The Will Of The Majority Is Supreme.

Democracies Have

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.

Phronimos, Possessing Practical Wisdom . But The Only Virtue Special To A Ruler Is Practical Wisdom; All The Others Must Be Possessed, So It Seems, Both By Rulers And Ruled. The Virtue Of A Person Being Ruled Is Not Practical Wisdom But Correct Opinion; He Is Rather Like A Person Who Makes The Pipes, While The Ruler Is The One Who Can Play Them.

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

He Who Has Conferred A Benefit On Anyone From Motives Of Love Or Honor Will Feel Pain, If He Sees That The Benefit Is Received Without Gratitude.

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.

A Man Can Make Up His Mind Quickly When He Has Only A Little To Make Up.

Now That Practical Skills Have Developed Enough To Provide Adequately For Material Needs, One Of These Sciences Which Are Not Devoted To Utilitarian Ends [mathematics] Has Been Able To Arise In Egypt, The Priestly Caste There Having The Leisure Necessary For Disinterested Research.

Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

One Can Aim At Honor Both As One Ought, And More Than One Ought, And Less Than One Ought. He Whose Craving For Honor Is Excessive Is Said To Be Ambitious, And He Who Is Deficient In This Respect Unambitious; While He Who Observes The Mean Has No Peculiar Name.

It Is Evident That The State Is A Creation Of Nature, And That Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

The Beauty Of The Soul Shines Out When A Man Bears With Composure One Heavy Mischance After Another, Not Because He Does Not Feel Them, But Because He Is A Man Of High And Heroic Temper.

We Ought Not To Listen To Those Who Exhort Us, Because We Are Human, To Think Of Human Things....we Ought Rather To Take On Immortality As Much As Possible, And Do All That We Can To Live In Accordance With The Highest Element Within Us; For Even If Its Bulk Is Small, In Its Power And Value It Far Exceeds Everything.

The Hardest Victory Is The Victory Over Self.

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

Wise People Have An Inward Sense Of What Is Beautiful, And The Highest Wisdom Is To Trust This Intuition And Be Guided By It.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

In Bad Or Corrupted Natures The Body Will Often Appear To Rule Over The Soul, Because They Are In An Evil And Unnatural Condition. At All Events We May Firstly Observe In Living Creatures Both A Despotical And A Constitutional Rule; For The Soul Rules The Body With A Despotical Rule, Whereas The Intellect Rules The Appetites With A Constitutional And Royal Rule. And It Is Clear That The Rule Of The Soul Over The Body, And Of The Mind And The Rational Element Over The Passionate, Is Natural And Expedient; Whereas The Equality Of The Two Or The Rule Of The Inferior Is Always Hurtful.

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Anyone Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man. But The Principle Of Responsibility Secures That Which Is The Greatest Good In States; The Right Persons Rule And Are Prevented From Doing Wrong, And The People Have Their Due. It Is Evident That This Is The Best Kind Of Democracy, And Why? Because The People Are Drawn From A Certain Class.

Great Men Are Always Of A Nature Originally Melancholy.

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

It Would Be Wrong To Put Friendship Before The Truth.

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

It Is No Part Of A Physician's Business To Use Either Persuasion Or Compulsion Upon The Patients.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

Greed Has No Boundaries

To Say Of What Is That It Is Not, Or Of What Is Not That It Is, Is False, While To Say Of What Is That It Is, And Of What Is Not That It Is Not, Is True.

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

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

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

Any Change Of Government Which Has To Be Introduced Should Be One Which Men, Starting From Their Existing Constitutions, Will Be Both Willing And Able To Adopt, Since There Is Quite As Much Trouble In The Reformation Of An Old Constitution As In The Establishment Of A New One, Just As To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn.

...perhaps There Is Some Element Of Good Even In The Simple Act Of Living, So Long As The Evils Of Existence Do Not Preponderate Too Heavily.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

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

Democracy Arose From Men's Thinking That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

So We Must Lay It Down That The Association Which Is A State Exists Not For The Purpose Of Living Together But For The Sake Of Noble Actions.

Those Who Act Receive The Prizes.

Music Has The Power Of Producing A Certain Effect On The Moral Character Of The Soul, And If It Has The Power To Do This, It Is Clear That The Young Must Be Directed To Music And Must Be Educated In It.

Both Oligarch And Tyrant Mistrust The People, And Therefore Deprive Them Of Their Arms.

This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

My Best Friend Is The Man Who In Wishing Me Well Wishes It For My Sake.

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.

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.

Fine Friendship Requires Duration Rather Than Fitful Intensity.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor; It Is The One Thing That Cannot Be Learned From Others; And It Is Also A Sign Of Genius, Since A Good Metaphor Implies An Intuitive Perception Of The Similarity Of The Dissimilar.

The Probable Is What Usually Happens.

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

One Swallow Does Not Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day.

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

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.

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

We Make War That We May Live In Peace.

Wit Is Educated Insolence.

The Science That Studies The Supreme Good For Man Is Politics.

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.

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

Our Problem Is Not That We Aim Too High And Miss, But That We Aim Too Low And Hit.

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.

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

All Men Agree That A Just Distribution Must Be According To Merit In Some Sense; They Do Not All Specify The Same Sort Of Merit, But Democrats Identify It With Freemen, Supporters Of Oligarchy With Wealth (or Noble Birth), And Supporters Of Aristocracy With Excellence.

A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life; But He Can Only Attain Happiness Under The Opposite Conditions

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

If The Art Of Ship-building Were In The Wood, Ships Would Exist By Nature.

The Aim Of Art Is To Represent Not The Outward Appearance Of Things, But Their Inward Significance.

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

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.

Neither Should Men Study War With A View To The Enslavement Of Those Who Do Not Deserve To Be Enslaved; But First Of All They Should Provide Against Their Own Enslavement, And In The Second Place Obtain Empire For The Good Of The Governed, And Not For The Sake Of Exercising A General Despotism, And In The Third Place They Should Seek To Be Masters Only Over Those Who Deserve To Be Slaves.

Great And Frequent Reverses Can Crush And Mar Our Bliss Both By The Pain They Cause And By The Hindrance They Offer To Many Activities. Yet Nevertheless Even In Adversity Nobility Shines Through, When A Man Endures Repeated And Severe Misfortune With Patience, Not Owing To Insensibility But From Generosity And Greatness Of Soul.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

When Couples Have Children In Excess, Let Abortion Be Procured Before Sense And Life Have Begun; What May Or May Not Be Lawfully Done In These Cases Depends On The Question Of Life And Sensation.

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

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.)

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

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

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

That Which Is In Locomotion Must Arrive At The Half-way Stage Before It Arrives At The Goal.

Through Discipline Comes Freedom.

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

One Citizen Differs From Another, But The Salvation Of The Community Is The Common Business Of Them All. This Community Is The Constitution; The Virtue Of The Citizen Must Therefore Be Relative To The Constitution Of Which He Is A Member.

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

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.

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.

Boundaries Don't Protect Rivers, People Do.

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

Choice Not Chance Determines Your Destiny [my Family Motto...credited To Aristotle]

Everyone Honors The Wise.

No Notice Is Taken Of A Little Evil, But When It Increases It Strikes The Eye.

Democracy Appears To Be Safer And Less Liable To Revolution Than Oligarchy. For In Oligarchies There Is The Double Danger Of The Oligarchs Falling Out Among Themselves And Also With The People; But In Democracies There Is Only The Danger Of A Quarrel With The Oligarchs. No Dissension Worth Mentioning Arises Among The People Themselves. And We May Further Remark That A Government Which Is Composed Of The Middle Class More Nearly Approximates To Democracy Than To Oligarchy, And Is The Safest Of The Imperfect Forms Of Government.

It Is Evidently Equally Foolish To Accept Probable Reasoning From A Mathematician And To Demand From A Rhetorician Demonstrative Proofs.

Thou Wilt Find Rest From Vain Fancies If Thou Doest Every Act In Life As Though It Were Thy Last.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions.

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 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.

The Seat Of The Soul And The Control Of Voluntary Movement - In Fact, Of Nervous Functions In General, - Are To Be Sought In The Heart. The Brain Is An Organ Of Minor Importance.

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.

Of Ill-temper There Are Three Kinds: Irascibility, Bitterness, Sullenness. It Belongs To The Ill-tempered Man To Be Unable To Bear Either Small Slights Or Defeats But To Be Given To Retaliation And Revenge, And Easily Moved To Anger By Any Chance Deed Or Word. Ill-temper Is Accompanied By Excitability Of Character, Instability, Bitter Speech, And Liability To Take Offence At Trifles And To Feel These Feelings Quickly And On Slight Occasions.

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

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

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

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

The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

Money Originated With Royalty And Slavery, It Has Nothing To Do With Democracy Or The Struggle Of The Empoverished Enslaved Majority.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

Happiness Is Something Final And Complete In Itself, As Being The Aim And End Of All Practical Activities Whatever .... Happiness Then We Define As The Active Exercise Of The Mind In Conformity With Perfect Goodness Or Virtue.

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

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

This World Is Inescapably Linked To The Motions Of The Worlds Above. All Power In This World Is Ruled By These Options.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

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

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

Happiness, Whether Consisting In Pleasure Or Virtue, Or Both, Is More Often Found With Those Who Are Highly Cultivated In Their Minds And In Their Character, And Have Only A Moderate Share Of External Goods, Than Among Those Who Possess External Goods To A Useless Extent But Are Deficient In Higher Qualities.

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

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

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 Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

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.

A Democracy When Put To The Strain Grows Weak, And Is Supplanted By Oligarchy.

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.

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

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

Every Effort Therefore Must Be Made To Perpetuate Prosperity. And, Since That Is To The Advantage Of The Rich As Well As The Poor, All That Accrues From The Revenues Should Be Collected Into A Single Fund And Distributed In Block Grants To Those In Need, If Possible In Lump Sums Large Enough For The Acquisition Of A Small Piece Of Land, But If Not, Enough To Start A Business, Or Work In Agriculture. And If That Cannot Be Done For All, The Distribution Might Be By Tribes Or Some Other Division Each In Turn.

Of Governments There Are Said To Be Only Two Forms - Democracy And Oligarchy. For Aristocracy Is Considered To Be A Kind Of Oligarchy, As Being The Rule Of A Few, And The So-called Constitutional Government To Be Really A Democracy.

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.

Wit Is Cultured Insolence.

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

The Unfortunate Need People Who Will Be Kind To Them; The Prosperous Need People To Be Kind To.

For Though We Love Both The Truth And Our Friends, Piety Requires Us To Honor The Truth First.

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

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

All Learning Is Derived From Things Previously Known.

But Since There Is But One Aim For The Entire State, It Follows That Education Must Be One And The Same For All, And That The Responsibility For It Must Be A Public One, Not The Private Affair Which It Now Is, Each Man Looking After His Own Children And Teaching Them Privately Whatever Private Curriculum He Thinks They Ought To Study.

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

Happiness Belongs To The Self Sufficient.

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

Memory Is Therefore, Neither Perception Nor Conception, But A State Or Affection Of One Of These, Conditioned By Lapse Of Time. As Already Observed, There Is No Such Thing As Memory Of The Present While Present, For The Present Is Object Only Of Perception, And The Future, Of Expectation, But The Object Of Memory Is The Past. All Memory, Therefore, Implies A Time Elapsed; Consequently Only Those Animals Which Perceive Time Remember, And The Organ Whereby They Perceive Time Is Also That Whereby They Remember.

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

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

But If Nothing But Soul, Or In Soul Mind, Is Qualified To Count, It Is Impossible For There To Be Time Unless There Is Soul, But Only That Of Which Time Is An Attribute, I.e. If Change Can Exist Without Soul.

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.

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

It Is In Justice That The Ordering Of Society Is Centered.

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

Even The Best Of Men In Authority Are Liable To Be Corrupted By Passion. We May Conclude Then That The Law Is Reason Without Passion, And It Is Therefore Preferable To Any Individual.

. .we Would Have To Say That Hereditary Succession Is Harmful. You May Say The King, Having Sovereign Power, Will Not In That Case Hand Over To His Children. But It Is Hard To Believe That: It Is A Difficult Achievement, Which Expects Too Much Virtue Of Human Nature.

While Most Of Those Who Hold That The Whole Heaven Is Finite Say That The Earth Lies At The Center, The Philosophers Of Italy, The So-called Pythagoreans, Assert The Contrary. They Say That In The Middle There Is Fire, And That The Earth Is One Of The Stars, And By Its Circular Motion Round The Center Produces Night And Day.

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.

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.

True Happiness Flows From The Possession Of Wisdom And Virtue And Not From The Possession Of External Goods.

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.

The Physician Himself, If Sick, Actually Calls In Another Physician, Knowing That He Cannot Reason Correctly If Required To Judge His Own Condition While Suffering.

The Happy Life Is Regarded As A Life In Conformity With Virtue. It Is A Life Which Involves Effort And Is Not Spent In Amusement.

It Is Better For A City To Be Governed By A Good Man Than By Good Laws.

... 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.

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

A Government Which Is Composed Of The Middle Class More Nearly Approximates To Democracy Than To Oligarchy, And Is The Safest Of The Imperfect Forms Of Government.

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

For The Real Difference Between Humans And Other Animals Is That Humans Alone Have Perception Of Good And Evil, Just And Unjust, Etc. It Is The Sharing Of A Common View In These Matters That Makes A Household And A State.

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

...the Life Which Is Best For Men, Both Separately, As Individuals, And In The Mass, As States, Is The Life Which Has Virtue Sufficiently Supported By Material Resources To Facilitate Participation In The Actions That Virtue Calls For.

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

[i]t Is Rather The Case That We Desire Something Because We Believe It To Be Good Than That We Believe A Thing To Be Good Because We Desire It. It Is The Thought That Starts Things Off.

Man By Nature Desires To Know.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

Such An Event Is Probable In Agathon's Sense Of The Word: 'it Is Probable,' He Says, 'that Many Things Should Happen Contrary To Probability.'

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

The Same Things Are Best Both For Individuals And For States, And These Are The Things Which The Legislator Ought To Implant In The Minds Of His Citizens.

We Praise A Man Who Feels Angry On The Right Grounds And Against The Right Persons And Also In The Right Manner At The Right Moment And For The Right Length Of Time.

Rightness In Our Choice Of An End Is Secured By [moral] Virtue.

The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Lies In The Heart.

It Is This Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences-makes Them, As The Poets Tell Us, 'charm The Crowd's Ears More Finely.' Educated Men Lay Down Broad General Principles; Uneducated Men Argue From Common Knowledge And Draw Obvious Conclusions.

Art Not Only Imitates Nature, But Also Completes Its Deficiencies.

If The State Cannot Be Entirely Composed Of Good Men, And Yet Each Citizen Is Expected To Do His Own Business Well, And Must Therefore Have Virtue, Still Inasmuch As All The Citizens Cannot Be Alike, The Virtue Of The Citizen And Of The Good Man Cannot Coincide. All Must Have The Virtue Of The Good Citizen - Thus, And Thus Only, Can The State Be Perfect; But They Will Not Have The Virtue Of A Good Man, Unless We Assume That In The Good State All The Citizens Must Be Good.

A True Disciple Shows His Appreciation By Reaching Further Than His Teacher.

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

What Is The Essence Of Life? To Serve Others And To Do Good.

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Alexandra Ripley

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Wilhelm Von Humboldt

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