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Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

-Aristotle

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Of Cases Where A

Aristotle

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Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

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Our Account Does Not Rob The Mathematicians Of Their Science... In Point Of Fact They Do Not Need The Infinite And Do Not Use It.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor. This Alone Cannot Be Imparted By Another; It Is The Mark Of Genius, For To Make Good Metaphors Implies An Eye For Resemblances.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

That In The Soul Which Is Called The Mind Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing.

The End Is Included Among Goods Of The Soul, And Not Among External Goods.

If There Is Any Kind Of Animal Which Is Female And Has No Male Separate From It, It Is Possible That This May Generate A Young One From Itself. No Instance Of This Worthy Of Any Credit Has Been Observed Up To The Present At Any Rate, But One Case In The Class Of Fishes Makes Us Hesitate. No Male Of The So-called Erythrinus Has Ever Yet Been Seen, But Females, And Specimens Full Of Roe, Have Been Seen. Of This, However, We Have As Yet No Proof Worthy Of Credit.

We Make War That We May Live In Peace.

We Must Not Feel A Childish Disgust At The Investigations Of The Meaner Animals. For There Is Something Marvelous In All Natural Things.

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

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

He Who Can Be, And Therefore Is, Another's, And He Who Participates In Reason Enough To Apprehend, But Not To Have, Is A Slave By Nature.

That Which Is Excellent Endures.

Everyone Honors The Wise.

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.

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.

Marriage Is Like Retiring As A Bachelor And Getting A Sexual Pension. You Don't Have To Work For The Sex Any More, But You Only Get 65% As Much.

One Would Have Thought That It Was Even More Necessary To Limit Population Than Property; And That The Limit Should Be Fixed By Calculating The Chances Of Mortality In The Children, And Of Sterility In Married Persons. The Neglect Of This Subject, Which In Existing States Is So Common, Is A Never-failing Cause Of Poverty Among The Citizens; And Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

Greatness Of Soul Seems Therefore To Be As It Were A Crowning Ornament Of The Virtues; It Enhances Their Greatness, And It Cannot Exist Without Them. Hence It Is Hard To Be Truly Great-souled, For Greatness Of Soul Is Impossible Without Moral Nobility.

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.

Quid Quid Movetur Ab Alio Movetur"(nothing Moves Without Having Been Moved).

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

Property Should Be In A General Sense Common, But As A General Rule Private... In Well-ordered States, Although Every Man Has His Own Property, Some Things He Will Place At The Disposal Of His Friends, While Of Others He Shares The Use Of Them.

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

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

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

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.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

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

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.

Should A Man Live Underground, And There Converse With The Works Of Art And Mechanism, And Should Afterwards Be Brought Up Into The Open Day, And See The Several Glories Of The Heaven And Earth, He Would Immediately Pronounce Them The Work Of Such A Being As We Define God To Be.

Music Has A Power Of Forming The Character, And Should Therefore Be Introduced Into The Education Of The Young.

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

To The Sober Person Adventurous Conduct Often Seems Insanity.

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

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

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.

Criticism Is Something We Can Avoid Easily By Saying Nothing, Doing Nothing, And Being Nothing.

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

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Be Able To Entertain A Thought Without Accepting It.

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

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

Character Education

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.

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.

For We Do Not Think That We Know A Thing Until We Are Acquainted With Its Primary Conditions Or First Principles, And Have Carried Our Analysis As Far As Its Simplest Elements.

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.

No One Chooses What Does Not Rest With Himself, But Only What He Thinks Can Be Attained By His Own Act.

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

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

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

Education Is An Ornament In Prosperity And A Refuge In Adversity.

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

The Good Lawgiver Should Inquire How States And Races Of Men And Communities May Participate In A Good Life, And In The Happiness Which Is Attainable By Them.

Fear Is Pain Arising From The Anticipation Of Evil.

Not To Get What You Have Set Your Heart On Is Almost As Bad As Getting Nothing At All.

Nature Herself, As Has Been Often Said, Requires That We Should Be Able, Not Only To Work Well, But To Use Leisure Well; For, As I Must Repeat Once Again, The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure. Both Are Required, But Leisure Is Better Than Occupation And Is Its End.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

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

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

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

Definition Of Tragedy: A Hero Destroyed By The Excess Of His Virtues

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

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.

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

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

Everything Necessarily Is Or Is Not, And Will Be Or Will Not Be; But One Cannot Divide And Say That One Or The Other Is Necessary.i Mean, For Example: It Is Necessary For There To Be Or Not To Be A Sea-battle Tomorrow; But It Is Not Necessary For A Sea-battle To Take Place Tomorrow, Or For One Not To Take Place--though It Is Necessary For One To Take Place Or Not To Take Place.

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.

We Give Up Leisure In Order That We May Have Leisure, Just As We Go To War In Order That We May Have Peace.

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

A Tragedy Is A Representation Of An Action That Is Whole And Complete And Of A Certain Magnitude. A Whole Is What Has A Beginning And Middle And End.

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

Those Who Believe 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.

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

Educating The Mind Without Educating The Heart Is No Education At All.

The Greatest Virtues Are Those Which Are Most Useful To Other Persons.

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

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

Therefore, Even The Lover Of Myth Is A Philosopher; For Myth Is Composed Of Wonder.

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

The Many Are More Incorruptible Than The Few; They Are Like The Greater Quantity Of Water Which Is Less Easily Corrupted Than A Little.

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.

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

At First He Who Invented Any Art That Went Beyond The Common Perceptions Of Man Was Naturally Admired By Men, Not Only Because There Was Something Useful In The Inventions, But Because He Was Thought Wise And Superior To The Rest. But As More Arts Were Invented, And Some Were Directed To The Necessities Of Life, Others To Its Recreation, The Inventors Of The Latter Were Always Regarded As Wiser Than The Inventors Of The Former, Because Their Branches Of Knowledge Did Not Aim At Utility.

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

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.

When...we, As Individuals, Obey Laws That Direct Us To Behave For The Welfare Of The Community As A Whole, We Are Indirectly Helping To Promote The Pursuit Of Happiness By Our Fellow Human Beings.

Pursuit Of Happiness

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.

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.

Cruel Is The Strife Of Brothers.

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

In The Many Forms Of Government Which Have Sprung Up There Has Always Been An Acknowledgement Of Justice And Proportionate Equality, Although Mankind Fail In Attaining Them, As Indeed I Have Already Explained. Democracy, For Example, Arises Out Of The Notion That Those Who Are Equal In Any Respect Are Equal In All Respects; Because Men Are Equally Free, They Claim To Be Absolutely Equal.

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.

Some Things The Legislator Must Find Ready To His Hand In A State, Others He Must Provide. And Therefore We Can Only Say: May Our State Be Constituted In Such A Manner As To Be Blessed With The Goods Of Which Fortune Disposes (for We Acknowledge Her Power): Whereas Virtue And Goodness In The State Are Not A Matter Of Chance But The Result Of Knowledge And Purpose. A City Can Be Virtuous Only When The Citizens Who Have A Share In The Government Are Virtuous, And In Our State All The Citizens Share In The Government.

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

All Men Desire By Nature To Know.

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.

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

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

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.

Finally, If Nothing Can Be Truly Asserted, Even The Following Claim Would Be False, The Claim That There Is No True Assertion.

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

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

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.

Our Virtues Are Voluntary (and In Fact We Are In A Sense Ourselves Partly The Cause Of Our Moral Dispositions, And It Is Our Having A Certain Character That Makes Us Set Up An End Of A Certain Kind), It Follows That Our Vices Are Voluntary Also; They Are Voluntary In The Same Manner As Our Virtues.

The Beginning, As The Proverb Says, Is Half The Whole.

He Who Cannot See The Truth For Himself, Nor, Hearing It From Others, Store It Away In His Mind, That Man Is Utterly Worthless.

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

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.

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

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.

Those That Know, Do. Those That Understand, Teach.

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

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

It Was Through The Feeling Of Wonder That Men Now And At First Began To Philosophize.

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

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.

Men Are Divided Between Those Who Are As Thrifty As If They Would Live Forever, And Those Who Are As Extravagant As If They Were Going To Die The Next Day.

Therefore, The Good Of Man Must Be The End Of The Science Of Politics.

For The Lesser Evil Is Reckoned A Good In Comparison With The Greater Evil, Since The Lesser Evil Is Rather To Be Chosen Than The Greater. .

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.

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

It Is Impossible, Or Not Easy, To Alter By Argument What Has Long Been Absorbed By Habit

It Has Been Handed Down In Mythical Form From Earliest Times To Posterity, That There Are Gods, And That The Divine (deity) Compasses All Nature. All Beside This Has Been Added, After The Mythical Style, For The Purpose Of Persuading The Multitude, And For The Interests Of The Laws, And The Advantage Of The State.

...for All Men Do Their Acts With A View To Achieving Something Which Is, In Their View, A Good.

Have A Definite, Clear, Practical Ideal - A Goal, An Objective.

Project Management

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.

It Is True, Indeed, That The Account Plato Gives In 'timaeus' Is Different From What He Says In His So-called 'unwritten Teachings.'

A Fool Contributes Nothing Worth Hearing And Takes Offense At Everything.

For Contemplation Is Both The Highest Form Of Activity (since The Intellect Is The Highest Thing In Us, And The Objects That It Apprehends Are The Highest Things That Can Be Known), And Also It Is The Most Continuous, Because We Are More Capable Of Continuous Contemplation Than We Are Of Any Practical Activity.

We Can't Learn Without Pain.

We Assume Therefore That Moral Virtue Is The Quality Of Acting In The Best Way In Relation To Pleasures And Pains, And That Vice Is The Opposite.

He Who Confers A Benefit On Anyone Loves Him Better Than He Is Beloved.

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.

Education And Morals Will Be Found Almost The Whole That Goes To Make A Good Man.

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.

Some Vices Miss What Is Right Because They Are Deficient, Others Because They Are Excessive, In Feelings Or In Actions, While Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean.

Democracy Arises Out Of The Notion That Those Who Are Equal In Any Respect Are Equal In All Respects; Because Men Are Equally Free, They Claim To Be Absolutely Equal.

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

Perception Starts With The Eye.

Speeches Are Like Babies-easy To Conceive But Hard To Deliver.

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.

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

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

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

A Democracy Exists Whenever Those Who Are Free And Are Not Well-off, Being In The Majority, Are In Sovereign Control Of Government, An Oligarchy When Control Lies With The Rich And Better-born, These Being Few.

Evils Draw Men Together.

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

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

He Who Is Unable To Live In Society, Or Who Has No Need Because He Is Sufficient For Himself, Must Be Either A Beast Or A God.

...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.

There's Many A Slip Between The Cup And The Lip.

Happiness May Be Defined As Good Fortune Joined To Virtue, Or A Independence, Or As A Life That Is Both Agreeable And Secure.

Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

The Man Who Is Content To Live Alone Is Either A Beast Or A God.

If You Would Understand Anything, Observe Its Beginning And Its Development

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

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

Whether We Will Philosophize Or We Won't Philosophize, We Must Philosophize.

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.

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

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.'

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

Wit Is Cultured Insolence.

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

There Are Branches Of Learning And Education Which We Must Study Merely With A View To Leisure Spent In Intellectual Activity, And These Are To Be Valued For Their Own Sake; Whereas Those Kinds Of Knowledge Which Are Useful In Business Are To Be Deemed Necessary, And Exist For The Sake Of Other Things.

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

Nor Need It Cause Surprise That Things Disagreeable To The Good Man Should Seem Pleasant To Some Men; For Mankind Is Liable To Many Corruptions And Diseases, And The Things In Question Are Not Really Pleasant, But Only Pleasant To These Particular Persons, Who Are In A Condition To Think Them So.

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

The Principle Aim Of Gymnastics Is The Education Of All Youth And Not Simply That Minority Of People Highly Favored By Nature.

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

It Is 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.

That Body Is Heavier Than Another Which, In An Equal Bulk, Moves Downward Quicker.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

There Is Nothing Grand Or Noble In Having The Use Of A Slave, In So Far As He Is A Slave; Or In Issuing Commands About Necessary Things. But It Is An Error To Suppose That Every Sort Of Rule Is Despotic Like That Of A Master Over Slaves, For There Is As Great A Difference Between The Rule Over Freemen And The Rule Over Slaves As There Is Between Slavery By Nature And Freedom By Nature . .

If The Poor, For Example, Because They Are More In Number, Divide Among Themselves The Property Of The Rich,- Is Not This Unjust? . . This Law Of Confiscation Clearly Cannot Be Just.

Beauty Is The Gift Of God

I Say That Habit's But A Long Practice, Friend, And This Becomes Men's Nature In The End.

Between Husband And Wife Friendship Seems To Exist By Nature, For Man Is Naturally Disposed To Pairing.

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

Words Of Wisdom

All Teaching And All Intellectual Learning Come About From Already Existing Knowledge.

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

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

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

Justice Therefore Demands That No One Should Do More Ruling Than Being Ruled, But That All Should Have Their Turn.

The Citizens Begin By Giving Up Some Part Of The Constitution, And So With Greater Ease The Government Change Something Else Which Is A Little More Important, Until They Have Undermined The Whole Fabric Of The State.

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

Happiness Is The Utilization Of One's Talents Along Lines Of Excellence.

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.

For Just As For A Flute-player, A Sculptor, Or An Artist, And, In General, For All Things That Have A Function Or Activity, The Good And The Well Is Thought To Reside In The Function, So Would It Seem To Be For Man, If He Has A Function.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

There Are Three Qualifications Required In Those Who Have To Fill The Highest Offices, - (1) First Of All, Loyalty To The Established Constitution; (2) The Greatest Administrative Capacity; (3) Virtue And Justice Of The Kind Proper To Each Form Of Government.

It Is Their Character Indeed That Makes People Who They Are. But It Is By Reason Of Their Actions That They Are Happy Or The Reverse.

The Ultimate Value Of Life Depends Upon Awareness And The Power Of Contemplation Rather Than Upon Mere Survival.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

But Is It Just Then That The Few And The Wealthy Should Be The Rulers? And What If They, In Like Manner, Rob And Plunder The People, - Is This Just?

In The Case Of Some People, Not Even If We Had The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, Would It Be Easy To Persuade Them Were We To Address Them Through The Medium Of That Knowledge; For A Scientific Discourse, It Is The Privilege Of Education To Appreciate, And It Is Impossible That This Should Extend To The Multitude.

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