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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.

-Aristotle

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One Would Have Thought

Aristotle

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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.

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If Men Think That A Ruler Is Religious And Has A Reverence For The Gods, They Are Less Afraid Of Suffering Injustice At His Hands.

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

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

If, Then, There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake (everything Else Being Desired For The Sake Of This), And If We Do Not Choose Everything For The Sake Of Something Else (for At That Rate The Process Would Go On To Infinity, So That Our Desire Would Be Empty And Vain), Clearly This Must Be The Good And The Chief Good.

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

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

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.

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.

The Intention Makes The Crime.

But Then In What Way Are Things Called Good? They Do Not Seem To Be Like The Things That Only Chance To Have The Same Name. Are Goods One Then By Being Derived From One Good Or By All Contributing To One Good, Or Are They Rather One By Analogy? Certainly As Sight Is In The Body, So Is Reason In The Soul, And So On In Other Cases.

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

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

As For The Story, Whether The Poet Takes It Ready Made Or Constructs It For Himself, He Should First Sketch Its General Outline, And Then Fill In The Episodes And Amplify In Detail.

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

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.

Pleasure Causes Us To Do Base Actions And Pain Causes Us To Abstain From Doing Noble Actions.

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

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

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

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

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

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

A Speaker Who Is Attempting To Move People To Thought Or Action Must Concern Himself With Pathos.

In All Well-attempered Governments There Is Nothing Which Should Be More Jealously Maintained Than The Spirit Of Obedience To Law, More Especially In Small Matters; For Transgression Creeps In Unperceived And At Last Ruins The State, Just As The Constant Recurrence Of Small Expenses In Time Eats Up A Fortune.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

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

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

Nicomachean Ethics

He Overcomes A Stout Enemy Who Overcomes His Own Anger.

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.

The End Of Labor Is To Gain Leisure.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

The Light Of The Day Is Followed By Night, As A Shadow Follows A Body.

Nor Was Civil Society Founded Merely To Preserve The Lives Of Its Members; But That They Might Live Well: For Otherwise A State Might Be Composed Of Slaves, Or The Animal Creation... Nor Is It An Alliance Mutually To Defend Each Other From Injuries, Or For A Commercial Intercourse. But Whosoever Endeavors To Establish Wholesome Laws In A State, Attends To The Virtues And Vices Of Each Individual Who Composes It; From Whence It Is Evident, That The First Care Of Him Who Would Found A City, Truly Deserving That Name, And Not Nominally So, Must Be To Have His Citizens Virtuous.

The Law Does Not Expressly Permit Suicide, And What It Does Not Permit It Forbids.

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

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

Happiness, Then, Is Co-extensive With Contemplation, And The More People Contemplate, The Happier They Are; Not Incidentally, But In Virtue Of Their Contemplation, Because It Is In Itself Precious. Thus Happiness Is A Form Of Contemplation.

Here And Elsewhere We Shall Not Obtain The Best Insight Into Things Until We Actually See Them Growing From The Beginning.

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.

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.

Whereas Young People Become Accomplished In Geometry And Mathematics, And Wise Within These Limits, Prudent Young People Do Not Seem To Be Found. The Reason Is That Prudence Is Concerned With Particulars As Well As Universals, And Particulars Become Known From Experience, But A Young Person Lacks Experience, Since Some Length Of Time Is Needed To Produce It.

It Is A Part Of Probability That Many Improbable Things Will Happen.

Again, It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways (for Evil Belongs To The Class Of The Unlimited And Good To That Of The Limited), While To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way (for Which Reason Also One Is Easy And The Other Difficult—to Miss The Mark Easy, To Hit It Difficult); For These Reasons Also, Then, Excess And Defect Are Characteristic Of Vice, And The Mean Of Virtue; For Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

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.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

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

Both Oligarch And Tyrant Mistrust The People, And Therefore Deprive Them Of Their Arms.

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

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.

There Is A Foolish Corner In The Brain Of The Wisest Man.

The Government Of Freemen Is Nobler And Implies More Virtue Than Despotic Government. Neither Is A City To Be Deemed Happy Or A Legislator To Be Praised Because He Trains His Citizens To Conquer And Obtain Dominion Over Their Neighbors, For There Is Great Evil In This.

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

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.

But If Nothing But Soul, Or In Soul Mind, Is Qualified To Count, It Is Impossible For There To Be Time Unless There Is Soul, But Only That Of Which Time Is An Attribute, I.e. If Change Can Exist Without Soul.

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.

To The Sober Person Adventurous Conduct Often Seems Insanity.

Happiness Seems To Require A Modicum Of External Prosperity.

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.

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

A State Is Not A Mere Society, Having A Common Place, Established For The Prevention Of Mutual Crime And For The Sake Of Exchange. Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Mere Companionship.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

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.

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

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.

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

We Ought, So Far As It Lies Within Our Power, To Aspire To Immortality, And Do All That We Can To Live In Conformity With The Highest That Is Within Us; For Even If It Is Small In Quantity, In Power And Preciousness, It Far Excels All The Rest.

Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of Soul Exhibiting Excellence, And If There Is More Than One Sort Of Excellence, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.foroneswallowdoesnot Makea Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

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.

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.

We Must Become Just Be Doing Just Acts.

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

Irrational Passions Would Seem To Be As Much A Part Of Human Nature As Is Reason.

As The Pleasures Of The Body Are The Ones Which We Most Often Meet With, And As All Men Are Capable Of These, These Have Usurped The Family Title; And Some Men Think These Are The Only Pleasures That Exist, Because They Are The Only Ones Which They Know.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Most Persons Think That A State In Order To Be Happy Ought To Be Large; But Even If They Are Right, They Have No Idea Of What Is A Large And What A Small State.... To The Size Of States There Is A Limit, As There Is To Other Things, Plants, Animals, Implements; For None Of These Retain Their Natural Power When They Are Too Large Or Too Small, But They Either Wholly Lose Their Nature, Or Are Spoiled.

[i]t Is Rather The Case That We Desire Something Because We Believe It To Be Good Than That We Believe A Thing To Be Good Because We Desire It. It Is The Thought That Starts Things Off.

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.

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

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.

Philosophy Begins With Wonder.

There Is Also A Doubt As To What Is To Be The Supreme Power In The State: - Is It The Multitude? Or The Wealthy? Or The Good? Or The One Best Man? Or A Tyrant?

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

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

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

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.

Men Come Together In Cities In Order To Live: They Remain Together In Order To Live The Good Life

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

Art Completes What Nature Cannot Bring To Finish. The Artist Gives Us Knowledge Of Nature's Unrealized Ends.

All That One Gains By Falsehood Is, Not To Be Believed When He Speaks The Truth.

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

Youth Should Stay Away From All Evil, Especially Things That Produce Wickedness And Ill-will.

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.

Yes The Truth Is That Men's Ambition And Their Desire To Make Money Are Among The Most Frequent Causes Of Deliberate Acts Of Injustice.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

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

The Shape Of The Heaven Is Of Necessity Spherical; For That Is The Shape Most Appropriate To Its Substance And Also By Nature Primary.

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

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

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

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

The Worst Thing About Slavery Is That The Slaves Eventually Get To Like It.

In The First Place, Then, Men Should Guard Against The Beginning Of Change, And In The Second Place They Should Not Rely Upon The Political Devices Of Which I Have Already Spoken Invented Only To Deceive The People, For They Are Proved By Experience To Be Useless.

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

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

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

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

Comedy Aims At Representing Men As Worse, Tragedy As Better Than In Actual Life.

It Is Of The Nature Of Desire Not To Be Satisfied, And Most Men Live Only For The Gratification Of It.

Plato Is My Friend, But Truth Is A Better Friend.

Talent Is Culture With Insolence.

Before You Heal The Body You Must First Heal The Mind

Fortune Favours The Bold.

Our Problem Is Not That We Aim Too High And Miss, But That We Aim Too Low And Hit.

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

Men Acquire A Particular Quality By Constantly Acting In A Particular Way.

The Hardest Victory Is The Victory Over Self.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

It Is Evident That The State Is A Creation Of Nature, And That Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.

If Men Are Given Food, But No Chastisement Nor Any Work, They Become Insolent.

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

Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

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.

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

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

One Swallow Does Not Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day.

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 Does Nothing In Vain.

Our Actions Determine Our Dispositions.

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.

Men Cling To Life Even At The Cost Of Enduring Great Misfortune.

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

Between Friends There Is No Need Of Justice.

So We Must Lay It Down That The Association Which Is A State Exists Not For The Purpose Of Living Together But For The Sake Of Noble Actions. Those Who Contribute Most To This Kind Of Association Are For That Very Reason Entitled To A Larger Share In The State Than Those Who, Though They May Be Equal Or Even Superior In Free Birth And In Family, Are Inferior In The Virtue That Belongs To A Citizen. Similarly They Are Entitled To A Larger Share Than Those Who Are Superior In Riches But Inferior In Virtue.

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

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.

The Proof That The State Is A Creation Of Nature And Prior To The Individual Is That The Individual, When Isolated, Is Not Self-sufficing.

The Line Between Lawful And Unlawful Abortion Will Be Marked By The Fact Of Having Sensation And Being Alive.

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

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.

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

The Excellence Of A Thing Is Related To Its Proper Function.

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.

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

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.

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

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

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

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

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

The Misanthrope, As An Essentially Solitary Man, Is Not A Man At All: He Must Be A Beast Or A God.

Imagination Is A Sort Of Faint Perception.

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.

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.

I Seek To Bring Forth What You Almost Already Know.

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

The Hand Is The Tool Of Tools.

The Saying Of Protagoras Is Like The Views We Have Mentioned; He Said That Man Is The Measure Of All Things, Meaning Simply That That Which Seems To Each Man Assuredly Is. If This Is So, It Follows That The Same Thing Both Is And Is Not, And Is Bad And Good, And That The Contents Of All Other Opposite Statements Are True, Because Often A Particular Thing Appears Beautiful To Some And Ugly To Others, And That Which Appears To Each Man Is The Measure

Character Is That Which Reveals Moral Purpose, Exposing The Class Of Things A Man Chooses And Avoids.

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

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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

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.

A Brave Man Is Clear In His Discourse, And Keeps Close To Truth.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

If, Therefore, There Is Any One Superior In Virtue And In The Power Of Performing The Best Actions, Him We Ought To Follow And Obey, But He Must Have The Capacity For Action As Well As Virtue.

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.

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.

Evil Draws Men Together.

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

The First Principle Of All Action Is Leisure.

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

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

Music Directly Imitates The Passions Or States Of The Soul...when One Listens To Music That Imitates A Certain Passion, He Becomes Imbued Withthe Same Passion; And If Over A Long Time He Habitually Listens To Music That Rouses Ignoble Passions, His Whole Character Will Be Shaped To An Ignoble Form.

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.

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

But Obviously A State Which Becomes Progressively More And More Of A Unity Will Cease To Be A State At All. Plurality Of Numbers Is Natural In A State; And The Farther It Moves Away From Plurality Towards Unity, The Less Of A State It Becomes And The More A Household, And The Household In Turn An Individual.

For Those Who Possess And Can Wield Arms Are In A Position To Decide Whether The Constitution Is To Continue Or Not

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.

Accordingly, The Poet Should Prefer Probable Impossibilities To Improbable Possibilities. The Tragic Plot Must Not Be Composed Of Irrational Parts.

For One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

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

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.

Equality Consists In The Same Treatment Of Similar Persons.

Equal Treatment

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

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.

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.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

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.

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

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.

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