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Of Actions Some Aim At What Is Necessary And Useful, And Some At What Is Honorable. And The Preference Given To One Or The Other Class Of Actions Must Necessarily Be Like The Preference Given To One Or Other Part Of The Soul And Its Actions Over The Other; There Must Be War For The Sake Of Peace, Business For The Sake Of Leisure, Things Useful And Necessary For The Sake Of Things Honorable.

-Aristotle

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Of Actions Some Aim

Aristotle

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Of Actions Some Aim At What Is Necessary And Useful, And Some At What Is Honorable. And The Preference Given To One Or The Other Class Of Actions Must Necessarily Be Like The Preference Given To One Or Other Part Of The Soul And Its Actions Over The Other; There Must Be War For The Sake Of Peace, Business For The Sake Of Leisure, Things Useful And Necessary For The Sake Of Things Honorable.

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

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.

What It Lies In Our Power To Do, It Lies In Our Power Not To Do.

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

Happiness Is A Quality Of The Soul...not A Function Of One's Material Circumstances.

Talent Is Culture With Insolence.

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

We Are Better Able To Study Our Neighbours Than Ourselves, And Their Actions Than Our Own.

It Makes No Difference Whether A Good Man Has Defrauded A Bad Man, Or A Bad Man Defrauded A Good Man, Or Whether A Good Or Bad Man Has Committed Adultery: The Law Can Look Only To The Amount Of Damage Done.

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

Thus Then A Single Harmony Orders The Composition Of The Whole...by The Mingling Of The Most Contrary Principles.

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

The Purpose Of The Present Study Is Not As It Is In Other Inquiries, The Attainment Of Knowledge, We Are Not Conducting This Inquiry In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Else There Would Be No Advantage In Studying It. For That Reason, It Becomes Necessary To Examine The Problem Of Our Actions And To Ask How They Are To Be Performed. For As We Have Said, The Actions Determine What Kind Of Characteristics Are Developed.

Plato Is Dear To Me, But Dearer Still Is Truth.

For We Are Inquiring Not In Order To Know What Virtue Is, But In Order To Become Good, Since Otherwise Our Inquiry Would Have Been Of No Use

So It Is Naturally With The Male And The Female; The One Is Superior, The Other Inferior; The One Governs, The Other Is Governed; And The Same Rule Must Necessarily Hold Good With Respect To All Mankind.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

Victory Is Plesant, Not Only To Those Who Love To Conquer, Bot To All; For There Is Produced An Idea Of Superiority, Which All With More Or Less Eagerness Desire.

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

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

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

In Making A Speech One Must Study Three Points: First, The Means Of Producing Persuasion; Second, The Language; Third The Proper Arrangement Of The Various Parts Of The Speech.

Reason Is A Light That God Has Kindled In The Soul.

Those Whose Days Are Consumed In The Low Pursuits Of Avarice, Or The Gaudy Frivolties Of Fashion, Unobservant Of Nature's Lovelinessof Demarcation, Nor On Which Side Thereof An Intermediate Form Should Lie.

A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

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.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers, And Oligarchy In Which The Rich; It Is Only An Accident That The Free Are The Many And The Rich Are The Few.

The Greater The Length, The More Beautiful Will The Piece Be By Reason Of Its Size, Provided That The Whole Be Perspicuous.

Wicked Men Obey For Fear, But The Good For Love.

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation. We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence, But We Rather Have Those Because We Have Acted Rightly. We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence, Then, Is Not An Act But A Habit.

Knowledge Of The Fact Differs From Knowledge Of The Reason For The Fact.

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions, Self-controlled By Exercising Self-control, And Courageous By Performing Acts Of Courage.

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.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

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.

Happiness, Then, Is Found To Be Something Perfect And Self-sufficient, Being The End To Which Our Actions Are Directed.

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

Because The Rich Are Generally Few In Number, While The Poor Are Many, They Appear To Be Antagonistic, And As The One Or The Other Prevails They Form The Government. Hence Arises The Common Opinion That There Are Two Kinds Of Government - Democracy And Oligarchy.

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

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

The Weak Are Always Anxious For Justice And Equality. The Strong Pay No Heed To Either.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Man To Look For Precision In Each Class Of Things Just So Far As The Nature Of The Subject Admits

Courage Is The First Of Human Qualities Because It Is The Quality Which Guarantees The Others.

Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth

But What Is Happiness? If We Consider What The Function Of Man Is, We Find That Happiness Is A Virtuous Activity Of The Soul.

What Is Happiness

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

The Guest Will Judge Better Of A Feast Than The Cook

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.

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

The High-minded Man Must Care More For The Truth Than For What People Think.

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

First, Have A Definite, Clear Practical Ideal; A Goal, An Objective. Second, Have The Necessary Means To Achieve Your Ends; Wisdom, Money, Materials, And Methods. Third, Adjust All Your Means To That End.

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

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.

Nature Of Man Is Not What He Was Born As, But What He Is Born For.

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

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

The Attainment Of Truth Is Then The Function Of Both The Intellectual Parts Of The Soul. Therefore Their Respective Virtues Are Those Dispositions Which Will Best Qualify Them To Attain Truth.

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

Whereas The Law Is Passionless, Passion Must Ever Sway The Heart Of Man.

The Happy Life Is Thought To Be One Of Excellence; Now An Excellent Life Requires Exertion, And Does Not Consist In Amusement.

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.

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

Governments Which Have A Regard To The Common Interest Are Constituted In Accordance With Strict Principles Of Justice, And Are Therefore True Forms; But Those Which Regard Only The Interest Of The Rulers Are All Defective And Perverted Forms, For They Are Despotic, Whereas A State Is A Community Of Freemen.

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

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.

To The Sober Person Adventurous Conduct Often Seems Insanity.

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

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

But The Whole Vital Process Of The Earth Takes Place So Gradually And In Periods Of Time Which Are So Immense Compared With The Length Of Our Life, That These Changes Are Not Observed, And Before Their Course Can Be Recorded From Beginning To End Whole Nations Perish And Are Destroyed.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

Friendship Is A Thing Most Necessary To Life, Since Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though Possessed Of All Other Advantages.

The So-called Pythagoreans, Who Were The First To Take Up Mathematics, Not Only Advanced This Subject, But Saturated With It, They Fancied That The Principles Of Mathematics Were The Principles Of All Things.

Today, See If You Can Stretch Your Heart And Expand Your Love So That It Touches Not Only Those To Whom You Can Give It Easily, But Also To Those Who Need It So Much.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

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.

Not To Know Of What Things One Should Demand Demonstration, And Of What One Should Not, Argues Want Of Education.

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross, Therein Lies Your Vocation. These Two, Your Talents And The Needs Of The World, Are The Great Wake Up Calls To Your True Vocation In Life... To Ignore This, Is In Some Sense, Is To Lose Your Soul.

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.

The Physician Heals, Nature Makes Well.

Not Every Action Or Emotion However Admits Of The Observance Of A Due Mean. Indeed The Very Names Of Some Directly Imply Evil, For Instance Malice, Shamelessness, Envy, And, Of Actions, Adultery, Theft, Murder. All These And Similar Actions And Feelings Are Blamed As Being Bad In Themselves; It Is Not The Excess Or Deficiency Of Them That We Blame. It Is Impossible Therefore Ever To Go Right In Regard To Them - One Must Always Be Wrong.

In The Perfect State The Good Man Is Absolutely The Same As The Good Citizen; Whereas In Other States The Good Citizen Is Only Good Relatively To His Own Form Of Government.

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

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

All Persons Ought To Endeavor To Follow What Is Right, And Not What Is Established.

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.

Revolutions Are Effected In Two Ways, By Force And By Fraud.

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.

The Tyrant, Who In Order To Hold His Power, Suppresses Every Superiority, Does Away With Good Men, Forbids Education And Light, Controls Every Movement Of The Citizens And, Keeping Them Under A Perpetual Servitude, Wants Them To Grow Accustomed To Baseness And Cowardice, Has His Spies Everywhere To Listen To What Is Said In The Meetings, And Spreads Dissension And Calumny Among The Citizens And Impoverishes Them, Is Obliged To Make War In Order To Keep His Subjects Occupied And Impose On Them Permanent Need Of A Chief.

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

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

Hence Both Women And Children Must Be Educated With An Eye To The Constitution, If Indeed It Makes Any Difference To The Virtue Of A City-state That Its Children Be Virtuous, And Its Women Too. And It Must Make A Difference, Since Half The Free Population Are Women, And From Children Come Those Who Participate In The Constitution.

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.

Where It Is In Our Power To Act, It Is Also In Our Power To Not Act.

Nicomachean Ethics

We Should Aim Rather At Leveling Down Our Desires Than Leveling Up Our Means.

The Moral Virtues, Then, Are Produced In Us Neither By Nature Nor Against Nature. Nature, Indeed, Prepares In Us The Ground For Their Reception, But Their Complete Formation Is The Product Of Habit.

There Is No Such Thing As Committing Adultery With The Right Woman, At The Right Time, And In The Right Way, For It Is Simply Wrong.

1 Is Not Prime, By Definition. 2 Is An Unnatural Prime, 4 Is An Unnatural Prime, And 6 Is An Unnatural Prime. All Other Natural Primes Cannot Be Unnatural Primes.

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.

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

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

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

Let Us Be Well Persuaded That Everyone Of Us Possesses Happiness In Proportion To His Virtue And Wisdom, And According As He Acts In Obedience To Their Suggestion.

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

Philosophy Begins With Wonder.

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.

Learning Is Not Child's Play; We Cannot Learn Without Pain.

Friends Hold A Mirror Up To Each Other; Through That Mirror They Can See Each Other In Ways That Would Not Otherwise Be Accessible To Them, And It Is This Mirroring That Helps Them Improve Themselves As Persons.

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

Humility Is A Flower Which Does Not Grow In Everyone's Garden.

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

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.

Speech Is The Representation Of The Mind, And Writing Is The Representation Of Speech.

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

That Education Should Be Regulated By Law And Should Be An Affair Of State Is Not To Be Denied, But What Should Be The Character Of This Public Education, And How Young Persons Should Be Educated, Are Questions Which Remain To Be Considered. As Things Are, There Is Disagreement About The Subjects. For Mankind Are By No Means Agreed About The Things To Be Taught, Whether We Look To Virtue Or The Best Life. Neither Is It Clear Whether Education Is More Concerned With Intellectual Or With Moral Virtue.

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

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

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

Moral Excellence Comes About As A Result Of Habit. We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

Happiness Lies In Virtuous Activity, And Perfect Happiness Lies In The Best Activity, Which Is Contemplative

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

I Call That Law Universal, Which Is Conformable Merely To Dictates Of Nature; For There Does Exist Naturally An Universal Sense Of Right And Wrong, Which, In A Certain Degree, All Intuitively Divine, Even Should No Intercourse With Each Other, Nor Any Compact Have Existed.

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

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.

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

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

Friendship Is A Single Soul Dwelling In Two Bodies.

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

When The Storytelling Goes Bad In A Society, The Result Is Decadence.

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.

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.

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

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.

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

For Nature By The Same Cause, Provided It Remain In The Same Condition, Always Produces The Same Effect, So That Either Coming-to-be Or Passing-away Will Always Result.

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

Of Mankind In General, The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole.

Character Education

If Everything When It Occupies An Equal Space Is At Rest, And If That Which Is In Locomotion Is Always Occupying Such A Space At Any Moment, The Flying Arrow Is Therefore Motionless.

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

In Practical Matters The End Is Not Mere Speculative Knowledge Of What Is To Be Done, But Rather The Doing Of It. It Is Not Enough To Know About Virtue, Then, But We Must Endeavor To Possess It, And To Use It, Or To Take Any Other Steps That May Make.

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

The Form Of Government Is A Democracy When The Free, Who Are Also Poor And The Majority, Govern, And An Oligarchy When The Rich And The Noble Govern, They Being At The Same Time Few In Number.

The Angry Man Wishes The Object Of His Anger To Suffer In Return; Hatred Wishes Its Object Not To Exist.

We Are What We Continually Do.

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.

Some Men Are Just As Sure Of The Truth Of Their Opinions As Are Others Of What They Know.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

The Arousing Of Prejudice, Pity, Anger, And Similar Emotions Has Nothing To Do With The Essential Facts, But Is Merely A Personal Appeal To The Man Who Is Judging The Case.

In The Laws It Is Maintained That The Best Constitution Is Made Up Of Democracy And Tyranny, Which Are Either Not Constitutions At All, Or Are The Worst Of All. But They Are Nearer The Truth Who Combine Many Forms; For The Constitution Is Better Which Is Made Up Of More Numerous Elements. The Constitution Proposed In The Laws Has No Element Of Monarchy At All; It Is Nothing But Oligarchy And Democracy, Leaning Rather To Oligarchy.

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

The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure.

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.

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

We Have Divided The Virtues Of The Soul Into Two Groups, The Virtues Of The Character And The Virtues Of The Intellect.

The Family Is The Association Established By Nature For The Supply Of Men's Everyday Wants.

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.

In The Works Of Nature, Purpose, Not Accident, Is The Main Thing.

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

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

Try Is A Noisy Way Of Doing Nothing.

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

Meaning Of Life

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

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.

By 'life,' We Mean A Thing That Can Nourish Itself And Grow And Decay.

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.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

It Is The Activity Of The Intellect That Constitutes Complete Human Happiness - Provided It Be Granted A Complete Span Of Life, For Nothing That Belongs To Happiness Can Be Incomplete.

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

Since The Branch Of Philosophy On Which We Are At Present Engaged Differs From The Others In Not Being A Subject Of Merely Intellectual Interest — I Mean We Are Not Concerned To Know What Goodness Essentially Is, But How We Are To Become Good Men, For This Alone Gives The Study Its Practical Value — We Must Apply Our Minds To The Solution Of The Problems Of Conduct.

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

The Best Way To Avoid Envy Is To Deserve The Success You Get.

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

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.

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.

The Activity Of Happiness Must Occupy An Entire Lifetime; For One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make.

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.

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.

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

Between Friends There Is No Need For Justice, But People Who Are Just Still Need The Quality Of Friendship; And Indeed Friendliness Is Considered To Be Justice In The Fullest Sense.

The Duty Of Rhetoric Is To Deal With Such Matters As We Deliberate Upon Without Arts Or Systems To Guide Us, In The Hearing Of Persons Who Cannot Take In At A Glance A Complicated Argument Or Follow A Long Chain Of Reasoning.

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

Equality Is Of Two Kinds, Numerical And Proportional; By The First I Mean Sameness Of Equality In Number Or Size; By The Second, Equality Of Ratios.

A Great City Is Not To Be Confounded With A Populous One.

... There Must Then Be A Principle Of Such A Kind That Its Substance Is Activity.

Words Of Wisdom

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

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.

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

Men Must Be Able To Engage In Business And Go To War, But Leisure And Peace Are Better; They Must Do What Is Necessary And Indeed What Is Useful, But What Is Honorable Is Better. On Such Principles Children And Persons Of Every Age Which Requires Education Should Be Trained.

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