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

-Aristotle

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Most Men Appear To

Aristotle

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

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

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

Different Men Seek After Happiness In Different Ways And By Different Means, And So Make For Themselves Different Modes Of Life And Forms Of Government.

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

.. For Desire Is Like A Wild Beast, And Anger Perverts Rulers And The Very Best Of Men. Hence Law Is Intelligence Without Appetition.

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.

Evidence From Torture May Be Considered Completely Untrustworthy

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

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

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

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.'

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

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

A King Ruleth As He Ought, A Tyrant As He Lists, A King To The Profit Of All, A Tyrant Only To Please A Few.

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

It Is Not Enough To Win A War; It Is More Important To Organize The Peace.

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

Now Property Is Part Of A Household, And The Acquisition Of Property Part Of Household-management; For Neither Life Itself Nor The Good Life Is Possible Without A Certain Minimum Supply Of The Necessities.

Experience Has Shown That It Is Difficult, If Not Impossible, For A Populous State To Be Run By Good Laws.

Character Is Made By Many Acts; It May Be Lost By A Single One.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

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.

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.

There Is Only One Condition In Which We Can Imagine Managers Not Needing Subordinates, And Masters Not Needing Slaves. This Condition Would Be That Each (inanimate) Instrument Could Do Its Own Work.

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

The Most Perfect Political Community Is One In Which The Middle Class Is In Control, And Outnumbers Both Of The Other Classes.

Persuasion Is Effected Through The Medium Of The Hearers, When They Shall Have Been Brought To A State Of Excitement Under The Influence Of Speech; For We Do Not, When Influenced By Pain Or Joy, Or Partiality Or Dislike, Award Our Decisions In The Same Way; About Which Means Of Persuasion Alone, I Declare That The System-mongers Of The Present Day Busy Themselves.

That Which Is Impossible And Probable Is Better Than That Which Is Possible And Improbable.

Man's Best Friend Is One Who Wishes Well To The Object Of His Wish For His Sake, Even If No One Is To Know Of It.

The Coward Calls The Brave Man Rash, The Rash Man Calls Him A Coward.

Excellence Is Not An Art. It Is The Habit Of Practice.

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.

Patience Is So Like Fortitude That She Seems Either Her Sister Or Her Daughter.

He Who Hath Many Friends Hath None.

If You Prove The Cause, You At Once Prove The Effect; And Conversely Nothing Can Exist Without Its Cause.

The Generality Of Men Are Naturally Apt To Be Swayed By Fear Rather Than Reverence, And To Refrain From Evil Rather Because Of The Punishment That It Brings Than Because Of Its Own Foulness.

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).

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

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

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

Equality Consists In The Same Treatment Of Similar Persons.

Equal Treatment

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

Melancholy Men Of All Others Are Most Witty, Which Causeth Many Times A Divine Ravishment, And A Kinde Of Enthusiasmus, Which Stirreth Them Up To Bee Excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, Etc.

Plants, Again, Inasmuch As They Are Without Locomotion, Present No Great Variety In Their Heterogeneous Pacts. For, When The Functions Are But Few, Few Also Are The Organs Required To Effect Them. ... Animals, However, That Not Only Live But Perceive, Present A Great Multiformity Of Pacts, And This Diversity Is Greater In Some Animals Than In Others, Being Most Varied In Those To Whose Share Has Fallen Not Mere Life But Life Of High Degree. Now Such An Animal Is Man.

To Be Always Seeking After The Useful Does Not Become Free And Exalted Souls.

Virtue Is The Golden Mean Between Two Vices, The One Of Excess And The Other Of Deficiency.

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.

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

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

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

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

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.

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

Meaning Of Life

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

Now It Is Evident That The Form Of Government Is Best In Which Every Man, Whoever He Is, Can Act Best And Live Happily.

The Same Ideas, One Must Believe, Recur In Men's Minds Not Once Or Twice But Again And Again.

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

It Is Easier To Get One Or A Few Of Good Sense, And Of Ability To Legislate And Adjudge, Than To Get Many.

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

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.

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

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

No Tyrant Need Fear Till Men Begin To Feel Confident In Each Other.

No Great Mind Has Ever Existed Without A Touch Of Madness.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

They Who Have Drunk Beer, Fall On Their Back, But There Is A Peculiarity In The Effects Of The Drink Made From Barley, For They That Get Drunk On Other Intoxicating Liquors Fall On All Parts Of Their Body, They Fall On The Left Side, On The Right Side, On Their Faces, And And On Their Backs. But It Is Only Those Who Get Drunk On Beer That Fall On Their Backs With Their Faces Upward.

Conscientious And Careful Physicians Allocate Causes Of Disease To Natural Laws, While The Ablest Scientists Go Back To Medicine For Their First Principles.

It Is The Characteristic Of The Magnanimous Man To Ask No Favor But To Be Ready To Do Kindness To Others.

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

Neglect Of An Effective Birth Control Policy Is A Never-failing Source Of Poverty Which, In Turn, Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

We Are The Sum Of Our Actions, And Therefore Our Habits Make All The Difference.

Indeed, We May Go Further And Assert That Anyone Who Does Not Delight In Fine Actions Is Not Even A Good Man.

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

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

Error Is Multiform (for Evil Is A Form Of The Unlimited, As In The Old Pythagorean Imagery, And Good Of The Limited), Whereas Success Is Possible In One Way Only (which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed - Easy To Miss The Target And Difficult To Hit It); So This Is Another Reason Why Excess And Deficiency Are A Mark Of Vice, And Observance Of The Mean A Mark Of Virtue: Goodness Is Simple, Badness Is Manifold.

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

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.

It Is Absurd To Hold That A Man Ought To Be Ashamed Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With His Limbs, But Not Of Being Unable To Defend Himself With Speech And Reason, When The Use Of Rational Speech Is More Distinctive Of A Human Being Than The Use Of His Limbs.

The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

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.

Our Youth Should Also Be Educated With Music And Physical Education.

...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.

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.

When You Feel Yourself Lacking Something, Send Your Thoughts Towards Your Intimate And Search For The Divinity That Lives Within You.

Lacking Something

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

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

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

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

Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though He Had All Other Goods.

There Is Nothing Strange In The Circle Being The Origin Of Any And Every Marvel.

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

No State Will Be Well Administered Unless The Middle Class Holds Sway.

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.

We Make War That We May Live In Peace.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

Neither By Nature, Then, Nor Contrary To Nature Do The Virtues Arise In Us; Rather We Are Adapted By Nature To Receive Them, And Are Made Perfect By Habit.

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

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

Law Is Mind Without Reason.

The Greatest Crimes Are Caused By Surfeit, Not By Want.

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

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

The Goodness Or Badness, Justice Or Injustice, Of Laws Varies Of Necessity With The Constitution Of States. This, However, Is Clear, That The Laws Must Be Adapted To The Constitutions. But If So, True Forms Of Government Will Of Necessity Have Just Laws, And Perverted Forms Of Government Will Have Unjust Laws.

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Plot Is Character Revealed By Action.

A Gentleman Is Not Disturbed By Anything

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

All Men By Nature Desire Knowledge.

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.

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.

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

Some Believe It To Be Just Friends Wanting, As If To Be Healthy Enough To Wish Health.

It Is Well To Be Up Before Daybreak, For Such Habits Contribute To Health, Wealth, And Wisdom.

As Our Acts Vary, Our Habits Will Follow In Their Course.

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.

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.

Virtue Means Doing The Right Thing, In Relation To The Right Person, At The Right Time, To The Right Extent, In The Right Manner, And For The Right Purpose. Thus, To Give Money Away Is Quite A Simple Task, But For The Act To Be Virtuous, The Donor Must Give To The Right Person, For The Right Purpose, In The Right Amount, In The Right Manner, And At The Right Time.

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

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

There Are Two Distinctive Peculiarities By Reference To Which We Characterize The Soul (1) Local Movement And (2) Thinking, Discriminating, And Perceiving. Thinking Both Speculative And Practical Is Regarded As Akin To A Form Of Perceiving; For In The One As Well As The Other The Soul Discriminates And Is Cognizant Of Something Which Is.

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

It Is Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences.

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

For It Is Not True, As Some Treatise-mongers Lay Down In Their Systems, Of The Probity Of The Speaker, That It Contributes Nothing To Persuasion; But Moral Character Nearly, I May Say, Carries With It The Most Sovereign Efficacy In Making Credible.

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

For What One Has To Learn To Do, We Learn By Doing.

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

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

Happiness Does Not Lie In Amusement; It Would Be Strange If One Were To Take Trouble And Suffer Hardship All One's Life In Order To Amuse Oneself.

The Soul Suffers When The Body Is Diseased Or Traumatized, While The Body Suffers When The Soul Is Ailing.

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.

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

One Cannot Say Of Something That It Is And That It Is Not In The Same Respect At The Same Time.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Whereas Happiness Is The Highest Good, Being A Realization And Perfect Practice Of Virtue, Which Some Can Attain, While Others Have Little Or None Of It, The Various Qualities Of Men Are Clearly The Reason Why There Are Various Kinds Of States And Many Forms Of Government; For Different Men Seek After Happiness In Different Ways And By Different Means, And So Make For Themselves Different Modes Of Life And Forms Of Government.

It Must Not Be Supposed That Happiness Will Demand Many Or Great Possessions; For Self-sufficiency Does Not Depend On Excessive Abundance, Nor Does Moral Conduct, And It Is Possible To Perform Noble Deeds Even Without Being Ruler Of Land And Sea: One Can Do Virtuous Acts With Quite Moderate Resources. This May Be Clearly Observed In Experience: Private Citizens Do Not Seem To Be Less But More Given To Doing Virtuous Actions Than Princes And Potentates. It Is Sufficient Then If Moderate Resources Are Forthcoming; For A Life Of Virtuous Activity Will Be Essentially A Happy Life.

Everyone Honors The Wise.

The Young Are Heated By Nature As Drunken Men By Wine.

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

Bashfulness Is An Ornament To Youth, But A Reproach To Old Age.

When A Draco Has Eaten Much Fruit, It Seeks The Juice Of The Bitter Lettuce; It Has Been Seen To Do This.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

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

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.

Teaching Is The Highest Form Of Understanding.

Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.

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.

Good Laws, If They Are Not Obeyed, Do Not Constitute Good Government.

It Is Well Said, Then, That It Is By Doing Just Acts That The Just Man Is Produced, And By Doing Temperate Acts The Temperate Man; Without Doing These No One Would Have Even A Prospect Of Becoming Good. But Most People Do Not Do These, But Take Refuge In Theory And Think They Are Being Philosophers And Will Become Good In This Way, Behaving Somewhat Like Patients Who Listen Attentively To Their Doctors, But Do None Of The Things They Are Ordered To Do.

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

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

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.

What You Have To Learn To Do, You Learn By Doing.

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.

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

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

Well Begun Is Half Done.

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

Rising Before Daylight Is Also To Be Commended; It Is A Healthy Habit, And Gives More Time For The Management Of The Household As Well As For Liberal Studies.

To Be Conscious That We Are Perceiving Or Thinking Is To Be Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

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

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

The Society That Loses Its Grip On The Past Is In Danger, For It Produces Men Who Know Nothing But The Present, And Who Are Not Aware That Life Had Been, And Could Be, Different From What It Is.

The Art Of Wealth-getting Which Consists In Household Management, On The One Hand, Has A Limit; The Unlimited Acquisition Of Wealth Is Not Its Business. And Therefore, In One Point Of View, All Riches Must Have A Limit; Nevertheless, As A Matter Of Fact, We Find The Opposite To Be The Case; For All Getters Of Wealth Increase Their Hard Coin Without Limit.

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.

Every Rascal Is Not A Thief, But Every Thief Is A Rascal.

There Is More Evidence To Prove That Saltness [of The Sea] Is Due To The Admixture Of Some Substance, Besides That Which We Have Adduced. Make A Vessel Of Wax And Put It In The Sea, Fastening Its Mouth In Such A Way As To Prevent Any Water Getting In. Then The Water That Percolates Through The Wax Sides Of The Vessel Is Sweet, The Earthy Stuff, The Admixture Of Which Makes The Water Salt, Being Separated Off As It Were By A Filter.

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

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

Personal Beauty Is A Greater Recommendation Than Any Letter Of Reference.

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

All Three States - The Lacedaemonian, The Cretan, And The Carthaginian - Nearly Resemble One Another, And Are Very Different From Any Others. Many Of The Carthaginian Institutions Are Excellent. The Superiority Of Their Constitution Is Proved By The Fact That The Common People Remains Loyal To The Constitution; The Carthaginians Have Never Had Any Rebellion Worth Speaking Of, And Have Never Been Under The Rule Of A Tyrant.

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.

Men Create The Gods After Their Own Images.

Yet The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Povery Lowers The Character Of The Democracy; Measures Therefore Should Be Taken Which Will Give Them Lasting Prosperity; And As This Is Equally The Interest Of All Classes, The Proceeds Of The Public Revenues Should Be Accumulated And Distributed Among Its Poor, If Possible, In Such Quantities As May Enable Them To Purchase A Little Farm, Or, At Any Rate, Make A Beginning In Trade Or Husbandry.

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.

Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth

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

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

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.

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

All Food Must Be Capable Of Being Digested, And That What Produces Digestion Is Warmth; That Is Why Everything That Has Soul In It Possesses Warmth.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

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

Just As A Royal Rule, If Not A Mere Name, Must Exist By Virtue Of Some Great Personal Superiority In The King, So Tyranny, Which Is The Worst Of Governments, Is Necessarily The Farthest Removed From A Well-constituted Form; Oligarchy Is Little Better, For It Is A Long Way From Aristocracy, And Democracy Is The Most Tolerable Of The Three.

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

That Which Is Excellent Endures.

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

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

It Is Evident, Then, That There Is A Sort Of Education In Which Parents Should Train Their Sons, Not As Being Useful Or Necessary, But Because It Is Liberal Or Noble.

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.

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

Beauty Is The Gift Of God

It Seems That Ambition Makes Most People Wish To Be Loved Rather Than To Love Others.

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