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Neither Should We Forget The Mean, Which At The Present Day Is Lost Sight Of In Perverted Forms Of Government; For Many Practices Which Appear To Be Democratical Are The Ruin Of Democracies, . . Those Who Think That All Virtue Is To Be Found In Their Own Party Principles Push Matters To Extremes; They Do Not Consider That Disproportion Destroys A State.

-Aristotle

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Neither Should We Forget

Aristotle

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Neither Should We Forget The Mean, Which At The Present Day Is Lost Sight Of In Perverted Forms Of Government; For Many Practices Which Appear To Be Democratical Are The Ruin Of Democracies, . . Those Who Think That All Virtue Is To Be Found In Their Own Party Principles Push Matters To Extremes; They Do Not Consider That Disproportion Destroys A State.

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Happiness Is Self-connectedness.

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

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.

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

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

If Purpose, Then, Is Inherent In Art, So Is It In Nature Also. The Best Illustration Is The Case Of A Man Being His Own Physician, For Nature Is Like That - Agent And Patient At Once.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

It Has Been Well Said That 'he Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.' The Two Are Not The Same, But The Good Citizen Ought To Be Capable Of Both; He Should Know How To Govern Like A Freeman, And How To Obey Like A Freeman - These Are The Virtues Of A Citizen.

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

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.

People Do Not Naturally Become Morally Excellent Or Practically Wise. They Become So, If At All, Only As The Result Of Lifelong Personal And Community Effort.

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

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

A Right Election Can Only Be Made By Those Who Have Knowledge.

When People Are Friends, They Have No Need Of Justice, But When They Are Just, They Need Friendship In Addition.

The Heart Is The Perfection Of The Whole Organism. Therefore The Principles Of The Power Of Perception And The Souls Ability To Nourish Itself Must Lie In The Heart.

Now All Orators Effect Their Demonstrative Proofs By Allegation Either Of Enthymems Or Examples, And, Besides These, In No Other Way Whatever.

People Generally Despise Where They Flatter.

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

Excellence, Then, Is A State Concerned With Choice, Lying In A Mean, Relative To Us, This Being Determined By Reason And In The Way In Which The Man Of Practical Wisdom Would Determine It.

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

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

It Is Homer Who Has Chiefly Taught Other Poets The Art Of Telling Lies Skillfully.

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

Authority Is No Source For Truth.

All Human Actions Have One Or More Of These Seven Causes: Chance, Nature, Compulsions, Habit, Reason, Passion, Desire.

That Rule Is The Better Which Is Exercised Over Better Subjects.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

There Are, Then, These Three Means Of Effecting Persuasion. The Man Who Is To Be In Command Of Them Must, It Is Clear, Be Able (1) To Reason Logically, (2) To Understand Human Character And Goodness In Their Various Forms, And (3) To Understand The Emotions--that Is, To Name Them And Describe Them, To Know Their Causes And The Way In Which They Are Excited.

Opinion Involves Belief (for Without Belief In What We Opine We Cannot Have An Opinion), And In The Brutes Though We Often Find Imagination We Never Find Belief.

Since The Things We Do Determine The Character Of Life, No Blessed Person Can Become Unhappy. For He Will Never Do Those Things Which Are Hateful And Petty.

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

Where Perception Is, There Also Are Pain And Pleasure, And Where These Are, There, Of Necessity, Is Desire.

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

Even If We Could Suppose The Citizen Body To Be Virtuous, Without Each Of Them Being So, Yet The Latter Would Be Better, For In The Virtue Of Each The Virtue Of All Is Involved.

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

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

Those Who Merely Possess The Goods Of Fortune May Be Haughty And Insolent; . . . They Try To Imitate The Great-souled Man Without Being Really Like Him, And Only Copy Him In What They Can, Reproducing His Contempt For Others But Not His Virtuous Conduct. For The Great-souled Man Is Justified In Despising Other People - His Estimates Are Correct; But Most Proud Men Have No Good Ground For Their Pride.

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.

Justice Is The Loveliest And Health Is The Best. But The Sweetest To Obtain Is The Heart's Desire.

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

With The Truth, All Given Facts Harmonize; But With What Is False, The Truth Soon Hits A Wrong Note.

If One Way Be Better Than Another, That You May Be Sure Is Nature's Way.

We May Assume The Superiority Ceteris Paribus Of The Demonstration Which Derives From Fewer Postulates Or Hypotheses - In Short, From Fewer Premises.

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

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.

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

Black And White

We Can't Learn Without Pain.

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

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

Find The Good. Seek The Unity. Ignore The Divisions Among Us.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

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

It Would Then Be Most Admirably Adapted To The Purposes Of Justice, If Laws Properly Enacted Were, As Far As Circumstances Admitted, Of Themselves To Mark Out All Cases, And To Abandon As Few As Possible To The Discretion Of The Judge.

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.

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

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

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

For Man, When Perfected, Is The Best Of Animals, But, When Separated From Law And Justice, He Is The Worst Of All; Since Armed Injustice Is The More Dangerous, And He Is Equipped At Birth With The Arms Of Intelligence And With Moral Qualities Which He May Use For The Worst Ends. Wherefore, If He Have Not Virtue, He Is The Most Unholy And The Most Savage Of Animals, And The Most Full Of Lust And Gluttony. But Justice Is The Bond Of Men In States, And The Administration Of Justice, Which Is The Determination Of What Is Just, Is The Principle Of Order In Political Society.

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.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Expect That Amount Of Exactness Which The Nature Of The Particular Subject Admits. It Is Equally Unreasonable To Accept Merely Probable Conclusions From A Mathematician And To Demand Strict Demonstration From An Orator.

The Senses Are Gateways To The Intelligence. There Is Nothing In The Intelligence Which Did Not First Pass Through The Senses.

Also, That Which Is Desirable In Itself Is More Desirable Than What Is Desirable Per Accidens.

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

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

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

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.

When There Is No Middle Class, And The Poor Greatly Exceed In Number, Troubles Arise, And The State Soon Comes To An End.

All Flatterers Are Mercenary, And All Low-minded Men Are Flatterers.

If Then, As We Say, Good Craftsmen Look To The Mean As They Work, And If Virtue, Like Nature, Is More Accurate And Better Than Any Form Of Art, It Will Follow That Virtue Has The Quality Of Hitting The Mean. I Refer To Moral Virtue [not Intellectual], For This Is Concerned With Emotions And Actions, In Which One Can Have Excess Or Deficiency Or A Due Mean.

Either A Beast Or A God.

When We Look At The Matter From Another Point Of View, Great Caution Would Seem To Be Required. For The Habit Of Lightly Changing The Laws Is An Evil, And, When The Advantage Is Small, Some Errors Both Of Lawgivers And Rulers Had Better Be Left; The Citizen Will Not Gain So Much By Making The Change As He Will Lose By The Habit Of Disobedience.

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

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

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

What Is The Highest Of All Goods Achievable By Action? ...both The General Run Of Man And People Of Superior Refinement Say That It Is Happiness ...but With Regard To What Happiness Is They Differ.

We Must Become Just Be Doing Just Acts.

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.

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

Adoration Is Made Out Of A Solitary Soul Occupying Two Bodies.

Just As At The Olympic Games It Is Not The Handsomest Or Strongest Men Who Are Crowned With Victory But The Successful Competitors, So In Life It Is Those Who Act Rightly Who Carry Off All The Prizes And Rewards.

Modesty Is Hardly To Be Described As A Virtue. It Is A Feeling Rather Than A Disposition. It Is A Kind Of Fear Of Falling Into Disrepute.

Worthless Persons Appointed To Have Supreme Control Of Weighty Affairs Do A Lot Of Damage.

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

The Complete Man Must Work, Study And Wrestle.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

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

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

Anyone, Without Any Great Penetration, May Distinguish The Dispositions Consequent On Wealth; For Its Possessors Are Insolent And Overbearing, From Being Tainted In A Certain Way By The Getting Of Their Wealth. For They Are Affected As Though They Possessed Every Good; Since Wealth Is A Sort Of Standard Of The Worth Of Other Things; Whence Every Thing Seems To Be Purchasable By It.

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.

Man By Nature Desires To Know.

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.

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

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. If He Finds Himself An Individual Who Cannot Live In Society, Or Who Pretends He Has Need Of Only His Own Resources Do Not Consider Him As A Member Of Humanity; He Is A Savage Beast Or A God.

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.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State, Especially Of The Highest Of All. The Government Is Everywhere Sovereign In The State, And The Constitution Is In Fact The Government.

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 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.

Justice Is Equality...but Equality Of What?

Ancient Laws Remain In Force Long After The People Have The Power To Change Them.

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

My Lectures Are Published And Not Published; They Will Be Intelligible To Those Who Heard Them, And To None Beside.

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

Hence Poetry Is Something More Philosophic And Of Graver Import Than History, Since Its Statements Are Of The Nature Rather Of Universals, Whereas Those Of History Are Singulars.

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 Man Who Examines Each Subject From A Philosophical Standpoint Cannot Neglect Them: He Has To Omit Nothing, And State The Truth About Each Topic.

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 . .

In All Things Of Nature There Is Something Of The Marvelous.

Shame Is An Ornament To The Young; A Disgrace To The Old.

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

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.

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.

We Are Masters Of Our Actions From The Beginning Up To The Very End. But, In The Case Of Our Habits, We Are Only Masters Of Their Commencement - Each Particular Little Increase Being As Imperceptible As In The Case Of Bodily Infirmities. But Yet Our Habits Are Voluntary, In That It Was Once In Our Power To Adopt Or Not To Adopt Such Or Such A Course Of Conduct.

In The Human Species At All Events There Is A Great Diversity Of Pleasures. The Same Things Delight Some Men And Annoy Others, And Things Painful And Disgusting To Some Are Pleasant And Attractive To Others.

They Who Are To Be Judges Must Also Be Performers.

Those Who Excel In Virtue Have The Best Right Of All To Rebel, But Then They Are Of All Men The Least Inclined To Do So.

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.

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

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

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.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

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

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.

All Who Have Meditated On The Art Of Governing Mankind Have Been Convinced That The Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth.

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

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

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

A Friend Is A Second Self, So That Our Consciousness Of A Friend's Existence...makes Us More Fully Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

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

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

We Must Speak First About The Division Of Land And About Those Who Cultivate It: Who Should They Be And What Kind Of Person? We Do Not Agree With Those Who Have Said That Property Should Be Communally Owned, But We Do Believe That There Should Be A Friendly Arrangement For Its Common Use, And That None Of The Citizens Should Be Without Means Of Support.

The Activity Of God, Which Is Transcendent In Blessedness, Is The Activity Of Contemplation; And Therefore Among Human Activities That Which Is Most Akin To The Divine Activity Of Contemplation Will Be The Greatest Source Of Happiness.

People Of Superior Refinement And Of Active Disposition Identify Happiness With Honour; For This Is Roughly Speaking, The End Of Political Life.

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

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.

Legislative Enactments Proceed From Men Carrying Their Views A Long Time Back; While Judicial Decisions Are Made Off Hand.

Bad People...are In Conflict With Themselves; They Desire One Thing And Will Another, Like The Incontinent Who Choose Harmful Pleasures Instead Of What They Themselves Believe To Be Good.

A Tyrant Must Put On The Appearance Of Uncommon Devotion To Religion. Subjects Are Less Apprehensive Of Illegal Treatment From A Ruler Whom They Consider God-fearing And Pious. On The Other Hand, They Do Less Easily Move Against Him, Believing That He Has The Gods On His Side.

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

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

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

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

He Who Hath Many Friends Hath None.

The Whole Is More Than The Sum Of Its Parts.

Logical Reasoning

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

A Poet's Object Is Not To Tell What Actually Happened But What Could Or Would Happen Either Probably Or Inevitably.... For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Scientific And Serious Than History, Because Poetry Tends To Give General Truths While History Gives Particular Facts.

So That The Lover Of Myths, Which Are A Compact Of Wonders, Is By The Same Token A Lover Of Wisdom.

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

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

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.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

Greatness Of Spirit Is Accompanied By Simplicity And Sincerity.

We Are What We Continually Do.

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

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.

Life In The True Sense Is Perceiving Or Thinking.

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.

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

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

The Good Man Is He For Whom, Because He Is Virtuous, The Things That Are Absolutely Good Are Good; It Is Also Plain That His Use Of These Goods Must Be Virtuous And In The Absolute Sense Good.

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

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.

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

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.

Prudence As Well As Moral Virtue Determines The Complete Performance Of A Man's Proper Function: Virtue Ensures The Rightness Of The End We Aim At, Prudence Ensures The Rightness Of The Means We Adopt To Gain That End.

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

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

Meaning Of Life

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

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

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.

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 Business Of Every Art Is To Bring Something Into Existence, And The Practice Of An Art Involves The Study Of How To Bring Into Existence Something Which Is Capable Of Having Such An Existence And Has Its Efficient Cause In The Maker And Not In Itself.

And It Is Characteristic Of Man That He Alone Has Any Sense Of Good And Evil, Of Just And Unjust, And The Like, And The Association Of Living Beings Who Have This Sense Makes Family And A State.

Of All The Varieties Of Virtues, Liberalism Is The Most Beloved.

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

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

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.

Without Virtue It Is Difficult To Bear Gracefully The Honors Of Fortune.

The Investigation Of The Truth Is In One Way Hard, In Another Easy. An Indication Of This Is Found In The Fact That No One Is Able To Attain The Truth Adequately, While, On The Other Hand, No One Fails Entirely, But Everyone Says Something True About The Nature Of All Things, And While Individually They Contribute Little Or Nothing To The Truth, By The Union Of All A Considerable Amount Is Amassed.

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge.

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

The Body Is At Its Best Between The Ages Of Thirty And Thirty-five.

There Must Be In Prudence Also Some Master Virtue.

Good Has Two Meanings: It Means That Which Is Good Absolutely And That Which Is Good For Somebody.

To Die In Order To Avoid The Pains Of Poverty, Love, Or Anything That Is Disagreeable, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Of A Coward.

Youth Should Be Kept Strangers To All That Is Bad, And Especially To Things Which Suggest Vice Or Hate. When The Five Years Have Passed Away, During The Two Following Years They Must Look On At The Pursuits Which They Are Hereafter To Learn. There Are Two Periods Of Life With Reference To Which Education Has To Be Divided, From Seven To The Age Of Puberty, And Onwards To The Age Of One And Twenty.

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

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

The Ideal Man Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy.

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.

Thus Every Action Must Be Due To One Or Other Of Seven Causes: Chance, Nature, Compulsion, Habit, Reasoning, Anger, Or Appetite.

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.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

Courage Is The Mother Of All Virtues Because Without It, You Cannot Consistently Perform The Others.

The Sun, Moving As It Does, Sets Up Processes Of Change And Becoming And Decay, And By Its Agency The Finest And Sweetest Water Is Every Day Carried Up And Is Dissolved Into Vapour And Rises To The Upper Region, Where It Is Condensed Again By The Cold And So Returns To The Earth. This, As We Have Said Before, Is The Regular Course Of Nature.

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James Montgomery

Robert B. Parker

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