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Take The Case Of Just Actions; Just Punishments And Chastisements Do Indeed Spring From A Good Principle, But They Are Good Only Because We Cannot Do Without Them - It Would Be Better That Neither Individuals Nor States Should Need Anything Of The Sort - But Actions Which Aim At Honor And Advantage Are Absolutely The Best. The Conditional Action Is Only The Choice Of A Lesser Evil; Whereas These Are The Foundation And Creation Of Good. A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life.

-Aristotle

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Take The Case Of

Aristotle

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Take The Case Of Just Actions; Just Punishments And Chastisements Do Indeed Spring From A Good Principle, But They Are Good Only Because We Cannot Do Without Them - It Would Be Better That Neither Individuals Nor States Should Need Anything Of The Sort - But Actions Which Aim At Honor And Advantage Are Absolutely The Best. The Conditional Action Is Only The Choice Of A Lesser Evil; Whereas These Are The Foundation And Creation Of Good. A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life.

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A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

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

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

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

The Ultimate End...is Not Knowledge, But Action. To Be Half Right On Time May Be More Important Than To Obtain The Whole Truth Too Late.

If A Man Of Good Natural Disposition Acquires Intelligence [as A Whole], Then He Excels In Conduct, And The Disposition Which Previously Only Resembled Virtue, Will Now Be Virtue In The True Sense. Hence Just As With The Faculty Of Forming Opinions [the Calculative Faculty] There Are Two Qualities, Cleverness And Prudence, So Also In The Moral Part Of The Soul There Are Two Qualities, Natural Virtue And True Virtue; And True Virtue Cannot Exist Without Prudence.

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

The Eyes Are The Organs Of Temptation, And The Ears Are The Organs Of Instruction.

Why Is It That All Men Who Are Outstanding In Philosophy, Poetry Or The Arts Are Melancholic?

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

The Word Is A Sign Or Symbol Of The Impressions Or Affections Of The Soul.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

To Write Well, Express Yourself Like The Common People, But Think Like A Wise Man.

No Science Ever Defends Its First Principles.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

Metaphysics Involves Intuitive Knowledge Of Unprovable Starting-points Concepts And Truth And Demonstrative Knowledge Of What Follows From Them.

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Happiness Is The Reward Of Virtue.

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

The Body Is At Its Best Between The Ages Of Thirty And Thirty-five.

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

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Truth Is A Remarkable Thing. We Cannot Miss Knowing Some Of It. But We Cannot Know It Entirely.

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

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Where Perception Is, There Also Are Pain And Pleasure, And Where These Are, There, Of Necessity, Is Desire.

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

For Pleasure Is A State Of Soul, And To Each Man That Which He Is Said To Be A Lover Of Is Pleasant.

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.

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Modesty Is Hardly To Be Described As A Virtue. It Is A Feeling Rather Than A Disposition. It Is A Kind Of Fear Of Falling Into Disrepute.

True Happiness Comes From Gaining Insight And Growing Into Your Best Possible Self. Otherwise All You're Having Is Immediate Gratification Pleasure, Which Is Fleeting And Doesn't Grow You As A Person.

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

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.

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

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.

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

Metaphor Is Halfway Between The Unintelligible And The Commonplace.

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

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.

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.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

For Man, When Perfected, Is The Best Of Animals, But, When Separated From Law And Justice, He Is The Worst Of All; Since Armed Injustice Is The More Dangerous, And He Is Equipped At Birth With The Arms Of Intelligence And With Moral Qualities Which He May Use For The Worst Ends. Wherefore, If He Have Not Virtue, He Is The Most Unholy And The Most Savage Of Animals, And The Most Full Of Lust And Gluttony. But Justice Is The Bond Of Men In States, And The Administration Of Justice, Which Is The Determination Of What Is Just, Is The Principle Of Order In Political Society.

Those Who Educate Children Well Are More To Be Honored Than They Who Produce Them; For These Only Gave Them Life, Those The Art Of Living Well.

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Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

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.

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Be A Free Thinker And Don't Accept Everything You Hear As Truth. Be Critical And Evaluate What You Believe In.

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.

He Who Has Conferred A Benefit On Anyone From Motives Of Love Or Honor Will Feel Pain, If He Sees That The Benefit Is Received Without Gratitude.

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A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

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The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

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The Greatest Thing In Style Is To Have A Command Of Metaphor.

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

I Have Gained This From Philosophy: That I Do Without Being Commanded What Others Do Only From Fear Of The Law.

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As Often As We Do Good, We Offer Sacrifices To God.

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

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

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

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.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

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

Wit Is Well-bred Insolence.

The Aim Of The Wise Is Not To Secure Pleasure, But To Avoid Pain.

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

Those Who Are Not Angry At The Things They Should Be Angry At Are Thought To Be Fools, And So Are Those Who Are Not Angry In The Right Way, At The Right Time, Or With The Right Persons.

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

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

To Say Of What Is That It Is Not, Or Of What Is Not That It Is, Is False, While To Say Of What Is That It Is, And Of What Is Not That It Is Not, Is True.

It Is No Easy Task To Be Good.

To The Sober Person Adventurous Conduct Often Seems Insanity.

The Hardest Victory Is The Victory Over Self.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

There Is An Ideal Of Excellence For Any Particular Craft Or Occupation; Similarly There Must Be An Excellent That We Can Achieve As Human Beings. That Is, We Can Live Our Lives As A Whole In Such A Way That They Can Be Judged Not Just As Excellent In This Respect Or In That Occupation, But As Excellent, Period. Only When We Develop Our Truly Human Capacities Sufficiently To Achieve This Human Excellent Will We Have Lives Blessed With Happiness.

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

No One Would Choose A Friendless Existence On Condition Of Having All The Other Things In The World.

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

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

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

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

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

Most People Would Rather Give Than Get Affection.

No Notice Is Taken Of A Little Evil, But When It Increases It Strikes The Eye.

We May Assume The Superiority Ceteris Paribus Of The Demonstration Which Derives From Fewer Postulates Or Hypotheses - In Short, From Fewer Premises.

The Wise Man Knows Of All Things, As Far As Possible, Although He Has No Knowledge Of Each Of Them In Detail

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

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Any One Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed, There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man.

No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.

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

Justice Is The Loveliest And Health Is The Best. But The Sweetest To Obtain Is The Heart's Desire.

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.

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

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

Anyone Who Has No Need Of Anybody But Himself Is Either A Beast Or A God.

Those That Deem Politics Beneath Their Dignity Are Doomed To Be Governed By Those Of Lesser Talents.

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

Law Is Mind Without Reason.

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.

Every Effort Therefore Must Be Made To Perpetuate Prosperity. And, Since That Is To The Advantage Of The Rich As Well As The Poor, All That Accrues From The Revenues Should Be Collected Into A Single Fund And Distributed In Block Grants To Those In Need, If Possible In Lump Sums Large Enough For The Acquisition Of A Small Piece Of Land, But If Not, Enough To Start A Business, Or Work In Agriculture. And If That Cannot Be Done For All, The Distribution Might Be By Tribes Or Some Other Division Each In Turn.

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

He Who Is To Be A Good Ruler Must Have First Been Ruled.

Young Men Have Strong Passions And Tend To Gratify Them Indiscriminately. Of The Bodily Desires, It Is The Sexual By Which They Are Most Swayed And In Which They Show Absence Of Control...they Are Changeable And Fickle In Their Desires Which Are Violent While They Last, But Quickly Over: Their Impulses Are Keen But Not Deep Rooted.

Men Pay Most Attention To What Is Their Own: They Care Less For What Is Common; Or, At Any Rate, They Care For It Only To The Extent To Which Each Is Individually Concerned.

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

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

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

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 . .

Greatness Of Spirit Is To Bear Finely Both Good Fourtune And Bad, Honor And Disgrace, And Not To Think Highly Of Luxury Or Attention Or Power Or Victories In Contests, And To Possess A Certain Depth And Magnitude Of Spirit.

To The Size Of The State There Is A Limit, As There Is To Plants, Animals And Implements, For None Of These Retain Their Facility When They Are Too Large.

Whatever We Learn To Do, We Learn By Actually Doing It; Men Come To Be Builders, For Instance, By Building, And Harp Players By Playing The Harp. In The Same Way, By Doing Just Acts We Come To Be Just; By Doing Self-controlled Acts, We Come To Be Self-controlled ; And By Doing Brave Acts, We Become Brave.

For Through Wondering Human Beings Now And In The Beginning Have Been Led To Philosophizing.

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

Misfortune Shows Those Who Are Not Really Friends.

Evil Draws Men Together.

A True Disciple Shows His Appreciation By Reaching Further Than His Teacher.

Since The Things We Do Determine The Character Of Life, No Blessed Person Can Become Unhappy. For He Will Never Do Those Things Which Are Hateful And Petty.

Thus It Is Thought That Justice Is Equality; And So It Is, But Not For All Persons, Only For Those That Are Equal. Inequality Also Is Thought To Be Just; And So It Is, But Not For All, Only For The Unequal. We Make Bad Mistakes If We Neglect This For Whom When We Are Deciding What Is Just. The Reason Is That We Are Making Judgements About Ourselves, And People Are Generally Bad Judges Where Their Own Interests Are Involved.

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

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.

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.

Those Who Have Been Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, And The Arts Have All Had Tendencies Toward Melancholia.

This Body Is Not A Home, But An Inn; And That Only For A Short Time. Seneca Friendship Is Composed Of A Single Soul Inhabiting Two Bodies.

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.

There Must Be In Prudence Also Some Master Virtue.

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

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.

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.

And What Has Come To Prevail In Democracies Is The Very Reverse Of Beneficial, In Those, That Is, Which Are Regarded As The Most Democratically Run. The Reason For This Lies In The Failure Properly To Define Liberty. For There Are Two Marks By Which Democracy Is Thought To Be Defined: "sovereignty Of The Majority" And "liberty." "just" Is Equated With What Is Equal, And The Decision Of The Majority As To What Is Equal Is Regarded As Sovereign; And Liberty Is Seen In Terms Of Doing What One Wants.

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.

Remember That Time Slurs Over Everything, Let All Deeds Fade, Blurs All Writings And Kills All Memories. Exempt Are Only Those Which Dig Into The Hearts Of Men By Love.

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.

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

The Gods Too Are Fond Of A Joke.

One May Go Wrong In Many Different Ways, But Right Only In One, Which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed.

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

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

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

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

The Wise Man Does Not Expose Himself Needlessly To Danger, Since There Are Few Things For Which He Cares Sufficiently; But He Is Willing, In Great Crises, To Give Even His Life - Knowing That Under Certain Conditions It Is Not Worthwhile To Live.

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

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.

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

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

...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.

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

Building Houses

Some Believe It To Be Just Friends Wanting, As If To Be Healthy Enough To Wish Health.

Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

Personal Beauty Is A Greater Recommendation Than Any Letter Of Reference.

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

Character May Almost Be Called The Most Effective Means Of Persuasion.

Happiness Is Activity.

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.

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

All Paid Jobs Absorb And Degrade The Mind.

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

In Most Constitutional States The Citizens Rule And Are Ruled By Turns, For The Idea Of A Constitutional State Implies That The Natures Of The Citizens Are Equal, And Do Not Differ At All.

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.

The Seat Of The Soul And The Control Of Voluntary Movement - In Fact, Of Nervous Functions In General, - Are To Be Sought In The Heart. The Brain Is An Organ Of Minor Importance.

Virtue Also Depends On Ourselves. And So Also Does Vice. For Where We Are Free To Act We Are Also Free To Refrain From Acting, And Where We Are Able To Say No We Are Also Able To Say Yes; If Therefore We Are Responsible For Doing A Thing When To Do It Right, We Are Also Responsible For Not Doing It When Not To Do It Is Wrong, And If We Are Responsible For Rightly Not Doing A Thing, We Are Also Responsible For Wrongly Doing It.

The Legislator Should Direct His Attention Above All To The Education Of Youth; For The Neglect Of Education Does Harm To The Constitution. The Citizen Should Be Molded To Suit The Form Of Government Under Which He Lives. For Each Government Has A Peculiar Character Which Originally Formed And Which Continues To Preserve It. The Character Of Democracy Creates Democracy, And The Character Of Oligarchy Creates Oligarchy.

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable; At One Time Two Obols Was Pay Enough; But Now, When This Sum Has Become Customary, Men Always Want More And More Without End.

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

To Love Someone Is To Identify With Them.

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

The Greatest Injustices Proceed From Those Who Pursue Excess, Not By Those Who Are Driven By Necessity.

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

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