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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.

-Aristotle

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Now If There Is

Aristotle

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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.

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The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor.

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.

Quite Often Good Things Have Hurtful Consequences. There Are Instances Of Men Who Have Been Ruined By Their Money Or Killed By Their Courage.

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

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

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

The Intention Makes The Crime.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered. As In Other Sciences, So In Politics, It Is Impossible That All Things Should Be Precisely Set Down In Writing; For Enactments Must Be Universal, But Actions Are Concerned With Particulars. Hence We Infer That Sometimes And In Certain Cases Laws May Be Changed.

Our Feelings Towards Our Friends Reflect Our Feelings Towards Ourselves.

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.

Well Begun Is Half Done.

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

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

When Quarrels And Complaints Arise, It Is When People Who Are Equal Have Not Got Equal Shares, Or Vice-versa.

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.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Rest Satisfied With The Degree Of Precision Which The Nature Of The Subject Admits And Not To Seek Exactness Where Only An Approximation Is Possible.

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

Even If You Must Have Regard To Wealth, In Order To Secure Leisure, Yet It Is Surely A Bad Thing That The Greatest Offices, Such As Those Of Kings And Generals, Should Be Bought. The Law Which Allows This Abuse Makes Wealth Of More Account Than Virtue, And The Whole State Becomes Avaricious.

We Make War That We May Live In Peace.

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

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.

...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.

Since We Think We Understand When We Know The Explanation, And There Are Four Types Of Explanation (one, What It Is To Be A Thing; One, That If Certain Things Hold It Is Necessary That This Does; Another, What Initiated The Change; And Fourth, The Aim), All These Are Proved Through The Middle Term.

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.

Man Is By Nature A Social Animal; An Individual Who Is Unsocial Naturally And Not Accidentally Is Either Beneath Our Notice Or More Than Human. Society Is Something That Precedes The Individual. Anyone Who Either Cannot Lead The Common Life Or Is So Self-sufficient As Not To Need To, And Therefore Does Not Partake Of Society, Is Either A Beast Or A God.

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

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

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.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

If You String Together A Set Of Speeches Expressive Of Character, And Well Finished In Point And Diction And Thought, You Will Not Produce The Essential Tragic Effect Nearly So Well As With A Play Which, However Deficient In These Respects, Yet Has A Plot And Artistically Constructed Incidents.

Art Takes Nature As Its Model.

What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

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.

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.

People Become House Builders Through Building Houses, Harp Players Through Playing The Harp. We Grow To Be Just By Doing Things Which Are Just.

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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.

Anaximenes And Anaxagoras And Democritus Say That Its [the Earth's] Flatness Is Responsible For It Staying Still: For It Does Not Cut The Air Beneath But Covers It Like A Lid, Which Flat Bodies Evidently Do: For They Are Hard To Move Even For The Winds, On Account Of Their Resistance.

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.

The Mathematical Sciences Particularly Exhibit Order Symmetry And Limitations; And These Are The Greatest Forms Of The Beautiful.

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If Every Tool, When Ordered, Or Even Of Its Own Accord, Could Do The Work That Befits It... Then There Would Be No Need Either Of Apprentices For The Master Workers Or Of Slaves For The Lords.

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.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

There Are Some Jobs In Which It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Virtuous.

Justice Is That Virtue Of The Soul Which Is Distributive According To Desert.

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.

They - Young People Have Exalted Notions, Because They Have Not Been Humbled By Life Or Learned Its Necessary Limitations; Moreover, Their Hopeful Disposition Makes Them Think Themselves Equal To Great Things - And That Means Having Exalted Notions. They Would Always Rather Do Noble Deeds Than Useful Ones: Their Lives Are Regulated More By Moral Feeling Than By Reasoning - All Their Mistakes Are In The Direction Of Doing Things Excessively And Vehemently. They Overdo Everything - They Love Too Much, Hate Too Much, And The Same With Everything Else.

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

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

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

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

The First Essential Responsibility Of The State Is Control Of The Market-place: There Must Be Some Official Charged With The Duty Of Seeing That Honest Dealing And Good Order Prevail. For One Of The Well-nigh Essential Activities Of All States Is The Buying And Selling Of Goods To Meet Their Mutual Basic Needs; This Is The Quickest Way To Self-sufficiency, Which Seems To Be What Moves Men To Combine Under A Single Constitution.

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.

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

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

Rhetoric Is The Counterpart Of Logic; Since Both Are Conversant With Subjects Of Such A Nature As It Is The Business Of All To Have A Certain Knowledge Of, And Which Belong To No Distinct Science. Wherefore All Men In Some Way Participate Of Both; Since All, To A Certain Extent, Attempt, As Well To Sift, As To Maintain An Argument; As Well To Defend Themselves, As To Impeach.

It Is Clearly Better That Property Should Be Private, But The Use Of It Common; And The Special Business Of The Legislator Is To Create In Men This Benevolent Disposition.

Nature Creates Nothing Without A Purpose.

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.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

The Most Perfect Political Community Must Be Amongst Those Who Are In The Middle Rank, And Those States Are Best Instituted Wherein These Are A Larger And More Respectable Part, If Possible, Than Both The Other; Or, If That Cannot Be, At Least Than Either Of Them Separate.

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

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

It Is Not Always The Same Thing To Be A Good Man And A Good Citizen.

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.

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.

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

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

Those Who Assert That The Mathematical Sciences Say Nothing Of The Beautiful Or The Good Are In Error. For These Sciences Say And Prove A Great Deal About Them; If They Do Not Expressly Mention Them, But Prove Attributes Which Are Their Results Or Definitions, It Is Not True That They Tell Us Nothing About Them. The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

There Are Three Things That Are The Motives Of Choice And Three That Are The Motives Of Avoidance; Namely, The Noble, The Expedient, And The Pleasant, And Their Opposites, The Base, The Harmful, And The Painful. Now In Respect Of All These The Good Man Is Likely To Go Right And The Bad To Go Wrong, But Especially In Respect Of Pleasure; For Pleasure Is Common To Man With The Lower Animals, And Also It Is A Concomitant Of All The Objects Of Choice, Since Both The Noble And The Expedient Appear To Us Pleasant.

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

The Proof That You Know Something Is That You Are Able To Teach It

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

For Often, When One Is Asleep, There Is Something In Consciousness Which Declares That What Then Presents Itself Is But A Dream.

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.

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

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.

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.

Evil Draws Men Together.

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

The High-minded Man Does Not Bear Grudges, For It Is Not The Mark Of A Great Soul To Remember Injuries, But To Forget Them.

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

Teachers, Who Educate Children, Deserve More Honour Than Parents, Who Merely Gave Them Birth; For The Latter Provided Mere Life, While The Former Ensure A Good Life.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

The Ensouled Is Distinguished From The Unsouled By Its Being Alive. Now Since Being Alive Is Spoken Of In Many Ways, Even If Only One Of These Is Present, We Say That The Thing Is Alive, If, For Instance, There Is Intellect Or Perception Or Spatial Movement And Rest Or Indeed Movement Connected With Nourishment And Growth And Decay. It Is For This Reason That All The Plants Are Also Held To Be Alive . . .

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.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

Talent Is Culture With Insolence.

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.

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 All Things Which Have A Plurality Of Parts, And Which Are Not A Total Aggregate But A Whole Of Some Sort Distinct From The Parts, There Is Some Cause.

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