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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.

-Aristotle

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Some Things The Legislator

Aristotle

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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.

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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.

Now The Goodness That We Have To Consider Is Clearly Human Goodness, Since The Good Or Happiness Which We Set Out To Seek Was Human Good And Human Happiness. But Human Goodness Means In Our View Excellence Of Soul, Not Excellence Of Body.

A Good Character Carries With It The Highest Power Of Causing A Thing To Be Believed.

Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

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

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

To Give A Satisfactory Decision As To The Truth It Is Necessary To Be Rather An Arbitrator Than A Party To The Dispute.

A Friend Is Another I.

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

Money Originated With Royalty And Slavery, It Has Nothing To Do With Democracy Or The Struggle Of The Empoverished Enslaved Majority.

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.

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

The Most Perfect Political Community Is One In Which The Middle Class Is In Control, And Outnumbers Both Of The Other Classes.

While Those Whom Devotion To Abstract Discussions Has Rendered Unobservant Of The Facts Are Too Ready To Dogmatize On The Basis Of A Few Observations.

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.'

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.

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.

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

You'll Understand What Life Is If You Think About The Act Of Dying. When I Die, How Will I Be Different From The Way I Am Right Now? In The First Moments After Death, My Body Will Be Scarcely Different In Physical Terms Than It Was In The Last Seconds Of Life, But I Will No Longer Move, No Longer Sense, Nor Speak, Nor Feel, Nor Care. It's These Things That Are Life. At That Moment, The Psyche Takes Flight In The Last Breath.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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

Now If There Is Any Gift Of The Gods To Men, It Is Reasonable That Happiness Should Be God-given, And Most Surely God-given Of All Human Things Inasmuch As It Is The Best. But This Question Would Perhaps Be More Appropriate To Another Inquiry; Happiness Seems, However, Even If It Is Not God-sent But Comes As A Result Of Virtue And Some Process Of Learning And Training, To Be Among The Most God-like Things; For That Which Is The Prize And End Of Virtue Seems To Be The Best Thing In The World, And Something God-like And Blessed.

Moral Qualities Are So Constituted As To Be Destroyed By Excess And By Deficiency . . .

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

Where Some People Are Very Wealthy And Others Have Nothing, The Result Will Be Either Extreme Democracy Or Absolute Oligarchy, Or Despotism Will Come From Either Of Those Excesses.

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.

If Some Animals Are Good At Hunting And Others Are Suitable For Hunting, Then The Gods Must Clearly Smile On Hunting.

Concerning The Generation Of Animals Akin To Them, As Hornets And Wasps, The Facts In All Cases Are Similar To A Certain Extent, But Are Devoid Of The Extraordinary Features Which Characterize Bees; This We Should Expect, For They Have Nothing Divine About Them As The Bees Have.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Happiness Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue

Nicomachean Ethics

The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Poverty Lowers The Character Of The Democracy.

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

Whatsoever That Be Within Us That Feels, Thinks, Desires, And Animates, Is Something Celestial, Divine, And, Consequently, Imperishable.

So, If We Must Give A General Formula Applicable To All Kinds Of Soul, We Must Describe It As The First Actuality [entelechy] Of Anatural Organized Body.

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

Character Education

It Is Clear That Those Constitutions Which Aim At The Common Good Are Right, As Being In Accord With Absolute Justice; While Those Which Aim Only At The Good Of The Rulers Are Wrong.

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

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.

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.

The Only Stable State Is The One In Which All Men Are Equal Before The Law.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

Anything That We Have To Learn To Do We Learn By The Actual Doing Of It; People Become Builders By Building And Instrumentalists By Playing Instruments. Similarily, We Become Just By Performing Just Acts, Temperate By Performing Temperate Ones, Brave By Performing Brave Ones.

A Line Is Not Made Up Of Points. ... In The Same Way, Time Is Not Made Up Parts Considered As Indivisible 'nows.' Part Of Aristotle's Reply To Zeno's Paradox Concerning Continuity.

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

The Right Constitutions, Three In Number- Kingship, Aristocracy, And Polity- And The Deviations From These, Likewise Three In Number - Tyranny From Kingship, Oligarchy From Aristocracy, Democracy From Polity.

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.

The Soul Is The Cause Or Source Of The Living Body. The Terms Cause And Source Have Many Senses. But The Soul Is The Cause Of Its Body Alike In All Three Senses Which We Explicitly Recognize. It Is (a) The Source Or Origin Of Movement, It Is (b) The End, It Is (c) The Essence Of The Whole Living Body.

A Democracy When Put To The Strain Grows Weak, And Is Supplanted By Oligarchy.

Female Cats Are Very Lascivious, And Make Advances To The Male.

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

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

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

It Concerns Us To Know The Purposes We Seek In Life, For Then, Like Archers Aiming At A Definite Mark, We Shall Be More Likely To Attain What We Want.

It Is No Easy Task To Be Good.

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

In [the Soul] One Part Naturally Rules, And The Other Is Subject, And The Virtue Of The Ruler We Maintain To Be Different From That Of The Subject; The One Being The Virtue Of The Rational, And The Other Of The Irrational Part. Now, It Is Obvious That The Same Principle Applies Generally, And Therefore Almost All Things Rule And Are Ruled According To Nature.

There Are Two Distinctive Peculiarities By Reference To Which We Characterize The Soul (1) Local Movement And (2) Thinking, Discriminating, And Perceiving. Thinking Both Speculative And Practical Is Regarded As Akin To A Form Of Perceiving; For In The One As Well As The Other The Soul Discriminates And Is Cognizant Of Something Which Is.

Every Wicked Man Is In Ignorance As To What He Ought To Do, And From What To Abstain, And It Is Because Of Error Such As This That Men Become Unjust And, In A Word, Wicked.

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

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

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.

He Who Cannot Be A Good Follower Cannot Be A Good Leader.

Democracy Is When The Indigent, And Not The Men Of Property, Are The Rulers.

Time Is The Measurable Unit Of Movement Concerning A Before And An After.

Time Management

Happiness Does Not Consist In Pastimes And Amusements But In Virtuous Activities.

Madness Is Badness Of Spirit, When One Seeks Profit From All Sources.

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.

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

Education Begins At The Level Of The Learner.

The End Of Labor Is To Gain Leisure.

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

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

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

Melancholy Men, Of All Others, Are The Most Witty.

Everybody Loves A Thing More If It Has Cost Him Trouble: For Instance Those Who Have Made Money Love Money More Than Those Who Have Inherited It.

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.

What Is The Highest Good In All Matters Of Action? To The Name, There Is Almost Complete Agreement; For Uneducated And Educated Alike Call It Happiness, And Make Happiness Identical With The Good Life And Successful Living. They Disagree, However, About The Meaning Of Happiness.

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

We Must As Second Best, As People Say, Take The Least Of The Evils.

And Inasmuch As The Great-souled Man Deserves Most, He Must Be The Best Of Men; For The Better A Man Is The More He Deserves, And He That Is Best Deserves Most. Therefore The Truly Great-souled Man Must Be A Good Man. Indeed Greatness In Each Of The Virtues Would Seem To Go With Greatness Of Soul.

Masculine Republics Give Way To Feminine Democracies, And Feminine Democracies Give Way To Tyranny.

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

No Science Ever Defends Its First Principles.

Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.

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.

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.

Sophocles Said He Drew Men As They Ought To Be, And Euripides As They Were.

The More You Know, The More You Know You Don't Know.

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

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

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.

Greatness Of Spirit Is Accompanied By Simplicity And Sincerity.

The Difference Between A Learned Man And An Ignorant One Is The Same As That Between A Living Man And A Corpse.

Emotions Of Any Kind Are Produced By Melody And Rhythm; Therefore By Music A Man Becomes Accustomed To Feeling The Right Emotions; Music Has Thus The Power To Form Character, And The Various Kinds Of Music Based On Various Modes May Be Distinguished By Their Effects On Character.

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

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

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.

Excellence Or Virtue In A Man Will Be The Disposition Which Renders Him A Good Man And Also Which Will Cause Him To Perform His Function Well.

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.

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

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

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

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.

Youth Loves Honor And Victory More Than Money.

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

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.

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers.

If Things Do Not Turn Out As We Wish, We Should Wish For Them As They Turn Out.

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

Everything That Depends On The Action Of Nature Is By Nature As Good As It Can Be.

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

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

Music Has The Power Of Producing A Certain Effect On The Moral Character Of The Soul, And If It Has The Power To Do This, It Is Clear That The Young Must Be Directed To Music And Must Be Educated In It.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

The Trade Of The Petty Usurer Is Hated With Most Reason: It Makes A Profit From Currency Itself, Instead Of Making It From The Process Which Currency Was Meant To Serve. Their Common Characteristic Is Obviously Their Sordid Avarice.

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.

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

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

While Fiction Is Often Impossible, It Should Not Be Implausible.

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

Soul And Body, I Suggest React Sympathetically Upon Each Other. A Change In The State Of The Soul Produces A Change In The Shape Of The Body And Conversely, A Change In The Shape Of The Body Produces A Change In The State Of The Soul.

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

Wit Is Cultured Insolence.

Knowing What Is Right Does Not Make A Sagacious Man.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

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

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.

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.

Think As The Wise Men Think, But Talk Like The Simple People Do.

The High-minded Man Is Fond Of Conferring Benefits, But It Shames Him To Receive Them.

We, On The Other Hand, Must Take For Granted That The Things That Exist By Nature Are, Either All Or Some Of Them, In Motion.

A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life; But He Can Only Attain Happiness Under The Opposite Conditions

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

Nicomachean Ethics

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

Perhaps Here We Have A Clue To The Reason Why Royal Rule Used To Exist Formerly, Namely The Difficulty Of Finding Enough Men Of Outstanding Virtue.

But Also Philosophy Is Not About Perceptible Substances They, You See, Are Prone To Destruction.

Words Of Wisdom

A Body In Motion Can Maintain This Motion Only If It Remains In Contact With A Mover.

Bodies In Motion

Men Agree That Justice In The Abstract Is Proportion, But They Differ In That Some Think That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely, Others That If They Are Unequal In Any Respect They Should Be Unequal In All. The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

It Is Well Said, Then, That It Is By Doing Just Acts That The Just Man Is Produced, And By Doing Temperate Acts The Temperate Man; Without Doing These No One Would Have Even A Prospect Of Becoming Good. But Most People Do Not Do These, But Take Refuge In Theory And Think They Are Being Philosophers And Will Become Good In This Way, Behaving Somewhat Like Patients Who Listen Attentively To Their Doctors, But Do None Of The Things They Are Ordered To Do.

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.

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

Music Imitates (represents) The Passions Or States Of The Soul, Such As Gentleness, Anger, Courage, Temperance, And Their Opposites.

For Legislators Make The Citizens Good By Forming Habits In Them, And This Is The Wish Of Every Legislator, And Those Who Do Not Effect It Miss Their Mark, And It Is In This That A Good Constitution Differs From A Bad One.

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

Moral Virtue Is ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Of Excess And That Of Defect, And ... It Is No Small Task To Hit The Mean In Each Case, As It Is Not, For Example, Any Chance Comer, But Only The Geometer, Who Can Find The Center Of A Given Circle.

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

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

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

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

Money Is A Guarantee That We May Have What We Want In The Future. Though We Need Nothing At The Moment It Insures The Possibility Of Satisfying A New Desire When It Arises.

Guarantees That

A Life Of Wealth And Many Belongings Is Only A Means To Happiness. Honor, Power, And Success Cannot Be Happiness Because They Depend On The Whims Of Others, And Happiness Should Be Self-contained, Complete In Itself.

The Truly Good And Wise Man Will Bear All Kinds Of Fortune In A Seemly Way, And Will Always Act In The Noblest Manner That The Circumstances Allow.

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

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

The Science That Studies The Supreme Good For Man Is Politics.

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

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

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

Peace Is More Difficult Than War.

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?

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.

Of The Tyrant, Spies And Informers Are The Principal Instruments. War Is His Favorite Occupation, For The Sake Of Engrossing The Attention Of The People, And Making Himself Necessary To Them As Their Leader.

But Nothing Is Yet Clear On The Subject Of The Intellect And The Contemplative Faculty. However, It Seems To Be Another Kind Of Soul, And This Alone Admits Of Being Separated, As That Which Is Eternal From That Which Is Perishable, While It Is Clear From These Remarks That The Other Parts Of The Soul Are Not Separable, As Some Assert Them To Be, Though It Is Obvious That They Are Conceptually Distinct.

Obstinate People Can Be Divided Into The Opinionated, The Ignorant, And The Boorish.

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

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.

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.

Although It May Be Difficult In Theory To Know What Is Just And Equal, The Practical Difficulty Of Inducing Those To Forbear Who Can, If They Like, Encroach, Is Far Greater, For The Weaker Are Always Asking For Equality And Justice, But The Stronger Care For None Of These Things.

In Inventing A Model We May Assume What We Wish, But Should Avoid Impossibilities.

It Is More Difficult To Organize A Peace Than To Win A War; But The Fruits Of Victory Will Be Lost If The Peace Is Not Organized.

For Imagining Lies Within Our Power Whenever We Wish . . . But In Forming Opinons We Are Not Free . . .

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

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.

It Is Just That We Should Be Grateful, Not Only To Those With Whose Views We May Agree, But Also To Those Who Have Expressed More Superficial Views; For These Also Contributed Something, By Developing Before Us The Powers Of Thought.

Law Is Mind Without Reason.

Tools May Be Animate As Well As Inanimate; For Instance, A Ship's Captain Uses A Lifeless Rudder, But A Living Man For Watch; For A Servant Is, From The Point Of View Of His Craft, Categorized As One Of Its Tools. So Any Piece Of Property Can Be Regarded As A Tool Enabling A Man To Live, And His Property Is An Assemblage Of Such Tools; A Slave Is A Sort Of Living Piece Of Property; And Like Any Other Servant Is A Tool In Charge Of Other Tools.

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

Maybe Crying Is A Means Of Cleaning Yourself Out Emotionally. Or Maybe It's Your Last Resort; The Only Way To Express Yourself When Words Fail, The Same As When You Were A Baby And Had No Words.

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.

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

The Soul Of Animals Is Characterized By Two Faculties, (a) The Faculty Of Discrimination Which Is The Work Of Thought And Sense, And (b) The Faculty Of Originating Local Movement.

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

The Knowledge Of The Soul Admittedly Contributes Greatly To The Advance Of Truth In General, And, Above All, To Our Understanding Of Nature, For The Soul Is In Some Sense The Principle Of Animal Life.

To Leave The Number Of Births Unrestricted, As Is Done In Most States, Inevitably Causes Poverty Among The Citizens, And Poverty Produces Crime And Faction.

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

It Is The Repeated Performance Of Just And Temperate Actions That Produces Virtue.

Anybody Can Become Angry - That Is Easy, But To Be Angry With The Right Person And To The Right Degree And At The Right Time And For The Right Purpose, And In The Right Way - That Is Not Within Everybody's Power And Is Not Easy.

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.

Every Formed Disposition Of The Soul Realizes Its Full Nature In Relation To And Dealing With That Class Of Objects By Which It Is Its Nature To Be Corrupted Or Improved.

All Friendly Feelings Toward Others Come From The Friendly Feelings A Person Has For Himself.

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