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The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

-Aristotle

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The Argument Of Alcidamas:

Aristotle

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The Argument Of Alcidamas: Everyone Honours The Wise. Thus The Parians Have Honoured Archilochus, In Spite Of His Bitter Tongue; The Chians Homer, Though He Was Not Their Countryman; The Mytilenaeans Sappho, Though She Was A Woman; The Lacedaemonians Actually Made Chilon A Member Of Their Senate, Though They Are The Least Literary Of Men; The Inhabitants Of Lampsacus Gave Public Burial To Anaxagoras, Though He Was An Alien, And Honour Him Even To This Day.

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Something Is Infinite If, Taking It Quantity By Quantity, We Can Always Take Something Outside.

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

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

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 Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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.

Of Means Of Persuading By Speaking There Are Three Species: Some Consist In The Character Of The Speaker; Others In The Disposing The Hearer A Certain Way; Others In The Thing Itself Which Is Said, By Reason Of Its Proving, Or Appearing To Prove The Point.

They Should Rule Who Are Able To Rule Best.

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

Humor Is The Only Test Of Gravity, And Gravity Of Humor; For A Subject Which Will Not Bear Raillery Is Suspicious, And A Jest Which Will Not Bear Serious Examination Is False Wit.

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

Wonder Implies The Desire To Learn.

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

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

The Man With A Host Of Friends Who Slaps On The Back Everybody He Meets Is Regarded As The Friend Of Nobody.

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

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.

In Justice Is All Virtues Found In Sum.

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

Courage Is A Mean With Regard To Fear And Confidence.

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.

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.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

They Who Are To Be Judges Must Also Be Performers.

Mothers Are Fonder Than Fathers Of Their Children Because They Are More Certain They Are Their Own.

Purpose ... Is Held To Be Most Closely Connected With Virtue, And To Be A Better Token Of Our Character Than Are Even Our Acts.

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

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.

It Is The Active Exercise Of Our Faculties In Conformity With Virtue That Causes Happiness, And The Opposite Activities Its Opposite.

The Only Stable Principle Of Government Is Equality According To Proportion, And For Every Man To Enjoy His Own.

It Will Contribute Towards One's Object, Who Wishes To Acquire A Facility In The Gaining Of Knowledge, To Doubt Judiciously.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

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

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.

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

Words Of Wisdom

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

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

We Are What We Repeatedly Do... Excellence, Therefore, Isn't Just An Act, But A Habit And Life Isn't Just A Series Of Events, But An Ongoing Process Of Self-definition.

To Know What Virtue Is Is Not Enough; We Must Endeavor To Possess And To Practice It, Or In Some Other Manner Actually Ourselves To Become Good.

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

Also, That Which Is Desirable In Itself Is More Desirable Than What Is Desirable Per Accidens.

The Virtue As The Art Consecrates Itself Constantly To What's Difficult To Do, And The Harder The Task, The Shinier The Success.

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

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

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.

If Then Nature Makes Nothing Without Some End In View, Nothing To No Purpose, It Must Be That Nature Has Made All Of Them For The Sake Of Man.

Nothing Is What Rocks Dream About

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

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.

Laughter Is A Bodily Exercise, Precious To Health

The Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

Nature Creates Nothing Without A Purpose.

Gentleness Is The Ability To Bear Reproaches And Slights With Moderation, And Not To Embark On Revenge Quickly, And Not To Be Easily Provoked To Anger, But Be Free From Bitterness And Contentiousness, Having Tranquility And Stability In The Spirit.

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.

Most People Would Rather Give Than Get Affection.

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

Only An Armed People Can Be Truly Free. Only An Unarmed People Can Ever Be Enslaved.

Whosoever Is Delighted In Solitude Is Either A Wild Beast Or A God.

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

For As The Eyes Of Bats Are To The Blaze Of Day, So Is The Reason In Our Soul To The Things Which Are By Nature Most Evident Of All.

You Will Never Do Anything In This World Without Courage. It Is The Greatest Quality Of The Mind Next To Honor.

A Man Becomes A Friend Whenever Being Loved He Loves In Return.

A Promise Made Must Be A Promise Kept.

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.

It Is Likely That Unlikely Things Should Happen

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

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

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

A Tragedy Is The Imitation Of An Action That Is Serious And Also, As Having Magnitude, Complete In Itself . . . With Incidents Arousing Pity And Fear, Wherewith To Accomplish Its Catharsis Of Such Emotions.

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

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.

Great And Frequent Reverses Can Crush And Mar Our Bliss Both By The Pain They Cause And By The Hindrance They Offer To Many Activities. Yet Nevertheless Even In Adversity Nobility Shines Through, When A Man Endures Repeated And Severe Misfortune With Patience, Not Owing To Insensibility But From Generosity And Greatness Of Soul.

But Nature Flies From The Infinite; For The Infinite Is Imperfect, And Nature Always Seeks An End.

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

Patience S Bitter, But It's Fruit Is Sweet.

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

That Judges Of Important Causes Should Hold Office For Life Is A Questionable Thing, For The Mind Grows Old As Well As The Body.

There Is Only One Condition In Which We Can Imagine Managers Not Needing Subordinates, And Masters Not Needing Slaves. This Condition Would Be That Each (inanimate) Instrument Could Do Its Own Work.

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

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.

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

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

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

Bashfulness Is An Ornament To Youth, But A Reproach To Old Age.

When The Looms Spin By Themselves, We'll Have No Need For Slaves.

To Be Angry Is Easy. But To Be Angry With The Right Man At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, That Is Not Easy.

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

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

For Suppose That Every Tool We Had Could Perform Its Task, Either At Our Bidding Or Itself Perceiving The Need, And If-like The Statues Made By Dædalus Or The Tripods Of Hephæstus, Of Which The Poet Says That "self-moved They Enter The Assembly Of The Gods" - Shuttles In A Loom Could Fly To And Fro And A Plectrum Play A Lyre All Self-moved, Then Master-craftsmen Would Have No Need Of Servants Nor Masters Of Slaves.

Perfect Friendship Is The Friendship Of Men Who Are Good, And Alike In Excellence; For These Wish Well Alike To Each Other Qua Good, And They Are Good In Themselves.

Why Is It That All Those Who Have Become Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, Or The Arts Are Clearly Of An Atrabilious Temperament And Some Of Them To Such An Extent As To Be Affected By Diseases Caused By Black Bile?

The Bad Man Is Continually At War With, And In Opposition To, Himself.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

Happiness Is Something Final And Complete In Itself, As Being The Aim And End Of All Practical Activities Whatever .... Happiness Then We Define As The Active Exercise Of The Mind In Conformity With Perfect Goodness Or Virtue.

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

Good Moral Character Is Not Something That We Can Achieve On Our Own. We Need A Culture That Supports The Conditions Under Which Self-love And Friendship Flourish.

It Is Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences.

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

Quite Often Good Things Have Hurtful Consequences. There Are Instances Of Men Who Have Been Ruined By Their Money Or Killed By Their Courage.

Happiness Is The Highest Good

It Is Clear That There Is Some Difference Between Ends: Some Ends Are Energeia [energy], While Others Are Products Which Are Additional To The Energeia.

Our Characters Are The Result Of Our Conduct.

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

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

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

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

The Aim Of Education Is To Make The Pupil Like And Dislike What He Ought....the Little Human Animal Will Not At First Have The Right Responses. It Must Be Trained To Feel Pleasure, Liking, Disgust, And Hatred At Those Things Which Really Are Pleasant, Likable, Disgusting, And Hateful.

Aim Of Education

The Virtue Of The Good Man Is Necessarily The Same As The Virtue Of The Citizen Of The Perfect State.

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.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation.

Academic Excellence

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

If There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake, Clearly This Must Be The Good. Will Not Knowledge Of It, Then, Have A Great Influence On Life? Shall We Not, Like Archers Who Have A Mark To Aim At, Be More Likely To Hit Upon What We Should? If So, We Must Try, In Outline At Least, To Determine What It Is.

Tyrants Preserve Themselves By Sowing Fear And Mistrust Among The Citizens By Means Of Spies, By Distracting Them With Foreign Wars, By Eliminating Men Of Spirit Who Might Lead A Revolution, By Humbling The People, And Making Them Incapable Of Decisive Action.

The Virtues [moral Excellence] Therefore Are Engendered In Us Neither By Nature Nor Yet In Violation Of Nature; Nature Gives Us The Capacity To Receive Them, And This Capacity Is Brought To Maturity By Habit.

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

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.

Happiness Is Essentially Perfect; So That The Happy Man Requires In Addition The Goods Of The Body, External Goods And The Gifts Of Fortune, In Order That His Activity May Not Be Impeded Through Lack Of Them.

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.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

The Mass Of Mankind Are Evidently Slavish In Their Tastes, Preferring A Life Suitable To Beasts.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

The Body Is Most Fully Developed From Thirty To Thirty-five Years Of Age, The Mind At About Forty-nine.

Just As A Royal Rule, If Not A Mere Name, Must Exist By Virtue Of Some Great Personal Superiority In The King, So Tyranny, Which Is The Worst Of Governments, Is Necessarily The Farthest Removed From A Well-constituted Form; Oligarchy Is Little Better, For It Is A Long Way From Aristocracy, And Democracy Is The Most Tolerable Of The Three.

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

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

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

[meanness] Is More Ingrained In Man's Nature Than Prodigality; The Mass Of Mankind Are Avaricious Rather Than Open-handed.

[the Virtues] Cannot Exist Without Prudence. A Proof Of This Is That Everyone, Even At The Present Day, In Defining Virtue, After Saying What Disposition It Is [i.e. Moral Virtue] And Specifying The Things With Which It Is Concerned, Adds That It Is A Disposition Determined By The Right Principle; And The Right Principle Is The Principle Determined By Prudence.

The Vigorous Are No Better Than The Lazy During One Half Of Life, For All Men Are Alike When Asleep.

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

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

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge. The Young They Keep Out Of Mischief; To The Old They Are A Comfort And Aid In Their Weakness, And Those In The Prime Of Life They Incite To Noble Deeds.

Teaching Is The Highest Form Of Understanding.

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

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

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

[this Element], The Seat Of The Appetites And Of Desire In General, Does In A Sense Participate In Principle, As Being Amenable And Obedient To It

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

Now That Practical Skills Have Developed Enough To Provide Adequately For Material Needs, One Of These Sciences Which Are Not Devoted To Utilitarian Ends [mathematics] Has Been Able To Arise In Egypt, The Priestly Caste There Having The Leisure Necessary For Disinterested Research.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

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.

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.

One Has No Friend Who Has Many Friends.

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.

Yet The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Povery Lowers The Character Of The Democracy; Measures Therefore Should Be Taken Which Will Give Them Lasting Prosperity; And As This Is Equally The Interest Of All Classes, The Proceeds Of The Public Revenues Should Be Accumulated And Distributed Among Its Poor, If Possible, In Such Quantities As May Enable Them To Purchase A Little Farm, Or, At Any Rate, Make A Beginning In Trade Or Husbandry.

Since Music Has So Much To Do With The Molding Of Character, It Is Necessary That We Teach It To Our Children.

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

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.

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

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.

In A Democracy The Poor Will Have More Power Than The Rich, Because There Are More Of Them, And The Will Of The Majority Is Supreme.

Democracies Have

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor.

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

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

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

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.

Happiness Belongs To The Self Sufficient.

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.

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

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

What We Know Is Not Capable Of Being Otherwise; Of Things Capable Of Being Otherwise We Do Not Know, When They Have Passed Outsideour Observation, Whether They Exist Or Not. Therefore The Object Of Knowledge Is Of Necessity. Therefore It Is Eternal; For Things That Are Of Necessity In The Unqualified Sense Are All Eternal; And Things That Are Eternal Are Ungenerated And Imperishable.

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.

Personal Beauty Requires That One Should Be Tall; Little People May Have Charm And Elegance, But Beauty-no.

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

If We State The Function Of Man To Be A Certain Kind Of Life, And This To Be An Activity Or Actions Of The Soul Implying A Rational Principle, And The Function Of A Good Man To Be The Good And Noble Performance Of These, And If Any Action Is Well Performed When It Is Performed In Accordance With The Appropriate Excellence Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, And If There Are More Than One Virtue, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.

Try Is A Noisy Way Of Doing Nothing.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

It Would Then Be Most Admirably Adapted To The Purposes Of Justice, If Laws Properly Enacted Were, As Far As Circumstances Admitted, Of Themselves To Mark Out All Cases, And To Abandon As Few As Possible To The Discretion Of The Judge.

A Man Can Make Up His Mind Quickly When He Has Only A Little To Make Up.

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.

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

It Is Not Enough To Win A War; It Is More Important To Organize The Peace.

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.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

Hippodamus, Son Of Euryphon, A Native Of Miletus, Invented The Art Of Planning And Laid Out The Street Plan Of Piraeus.

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

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

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

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

There Is Honor In Being A Dog.

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

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

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

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.

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

Patience Is So Like Fortitude That She Seems Either Her Sister Or Her Daughter.

Evidence From Torture May Be Considered Completely Untrustworthy

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

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

All Men Agree That A Just Distribution Must Be According To Merit In Some Sense; They Do Not All Specify The Same Sort Of Merit, But Democrats Identify It With Freemen, Supporters Of Oligarchy With Wealth (or Noble Birth), And Supporters Of Aristocracy With Excellence.

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.

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.

The Error Of Socrates Must Be Attributed To The False Notion Of Unity From Which He Starts. Unity There Should Be, Both Of The Family And Of The State, But In Some Respects Only. For There Is A Point At Which A State May Attain Such A Degree Of Unity As To Be No Longer A State, Or At Which, Without Actually Ceasing To Exist, It Will Become An Inferior State, Like Harmony Passing Into Unison, Or Rhythm Which Has Been Reduced To A Single Foot. The State, As I Was Saying, Is A Plurality Which Should Be United And Made Into A Community By Education

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

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 Couples Have Children In Excess, Let Abortion Be Procured Before Sense And Life Have Begun; What May Or May Not Be Lawfully Done In These Cases Depends On The Question Of Life And Sensation.

A Sense Is What Has The Power Of Receiving Into Itself The Sensible Forms Of Things Without The Matter, In The Way In Which A Piece Of Wax Takes On The Impress Of A Signet-ring Without The Iron Or Gold.

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