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The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

-Aristotle

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The Good Of Man

Aristotle

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The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

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

We Should Behave To Our Friends As We Would Wish Our Friends Behave To Us

It Is Through Wonder That Men Now Begin And Originally Began To Philosophize; Wondering In The First Place At Obvious Perplexities, And Then By Gradual Progression Raising Questions About The Greater Matters Too.

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 The Mark Of An Educated Man To Look For Precision In Each Class Of Things Just So Far As The Nature Of The Subject Admits

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.

We Have No Evidence As Yet About Mind Or The Power To Think; It Seems To Be A Widely Different Kind Of Soul, Differing As What Is Eternal From What Is Perishable; It Alone Is Capable Of Existence In Isolation From All Other Psychic Powers.

It Is Not Once Nor Twice But Times Without Number That The Same Ideas Make Their Appearance In The World.

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.

Dignity Does Not Consist In Possessing Honors, But In Deserving Them.

That The Equalization Of Property Exercises An Influence On Political Society Was Clearly Understood Even By Some Of The Old Legislators. Laws Were Made By Solon And Others Prohibiting An Individual From Possessing As Much Land As He Pleased.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

Boundaries Don't Protect Rivers, People Do.

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

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

Time Management

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

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

...in This Way The Structure Of The Universe- I Mean, Of The Heavens And The Earth And The Whole World- Was Arranged By One Harmony Through The Blending Of The Most Opposite Principles.

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.

Happiness Belongs To The Self Sufficient.

That Rule Is The Better Which Is Exercised Over Better Subjects.

Women Should Marry When They Are About Eighteen Years Of Age, And Men At Seven And Thirty; Then They Are In The Prime Of Life, And The Decline In The Powers Of Both Will Coincide.

For What Is The Best Choice For Each Individual Is The Highest It Is Possible For Him To Achieve.

There Are Still Two Forms Besides Democracy And Oligarchy; One Of Them Is Universally Recognized And Included Among The Four Principal Forms Of Government, Which Are Said To Be (1) Monarchy, (2) Oligarchy, (3) Democracy, And (4) The So-called Aristocracy Or Government Of The Best. But There Is Also A Fifth, Which Retains The Generic Name Of Polity Or Constitutional Government.

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

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

It Is No Part Of A Physician's Business To Use Either Persuasion Or Compulsion Upon The Patients.

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

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.

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being; For It Is Concerned Neither With Things That Are, Or Come Into Being By Necessity, Nor With Things That Do So In Accordance With Nature.

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

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.

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

Being A Father Is The Most Rewarding Thing A Man Whose Career Has Plateaued Can Do.

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.

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

Money Was Intended To Be Used In Exchange, But Not To Increase At Interest. And This Term Interest, Which Means The Birth Of Money From Money, Is Applied To The Breeding Of Money Because The Offspring Resembles The Parent. Wherefore Of All Modes Of Getting Wealth This Is The Most Unnatural.

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

Let Us First Understand The Facts And Then We May Seek The Cause.

It Is Also In The Interests Of A Tyrant To Make His Subjects Poo...the People Are So Occupied With Their Daily Tasks That They Have No Time For Plotting.

In All Things Which Have A Plurality Of Parts, And Which Are Not A Total Aggregate But A Whole Of Some Sort Distinct From The Parts, There Is Some Cause.

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

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

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

Suppose, Then, That All Men Were Sick Or Deranged, Save One Or Two Of Them Who Were Healthy And Of Right Mind. It Would Then Be The Latter Two Who Would Be Thought To Be Sick And Deranged And The Former Not!

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

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

The Student Of Politics Therefore As Well As The Psychologist Must Study The Nature Of The Soul.

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

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

As To Adultery, Let It Be Held Disgraceful, In General, For Any Man Or Woman To Be Found In Any Way Unfaithful When They Are Married, And Called Husband And Wife. If During The Time Of Bearing Children Anything Of The Sort Occur, Let The Guilty Person Be Punished With A Loss Of Privileges In Proportion To The Offense.

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

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

"i Was Not Alone When I Was In Goofy Hell"

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.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

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

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.

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

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

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 Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

Men Become Richer Not Only By Increasing Their Existing Wealth But Also By Decreasing Their Expenditure.

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

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.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

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.

Temperance And Bravery, Then, Are Ruined By Excess And Deficiency, But Preserved By The Mean.

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.

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

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?

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

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

Teachers, Who Educate Children, Deserve More Honour Than Parents, Who Merely Gave Them Birth; For The Latter Provided Mere Life, While The Former Ensure A Good Life.

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

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.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

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

He Then Alone Will Strictly Be Called Brave Who Is Fearless Of A Noble Death, And Of All Such Chances As Come Upon Us With Sudden Death In Their Train.

It Is Unbecoming For Young Men To Utter Maxims.

Philosophy Begins With Wonder.

The Unfortunate Need People Who Will Be Kind To Them; The Prosperous Need People To Be Kind To.

Life Is Full Of Chances And Changes, And The Most Prosperous Of Men May In The Evening Of His Days Meet With Great Misfortunes.

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.

... The Science We Are After Is Not About Mathematicals Either None Of Them, You See, Is Separable.

Words Of Wisdom

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

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

The Happy Life Is Thought To Be One Of Excellence; Now An Excellent Life Requires Exertion, And Does Not Consist In Amusement.

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

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

Nowadays, For The Sake Of The Advantage Which Is To Be Gained From The Public Revenues And From Office, Men Want To Be Always In Office.

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.

It Is Evident, Then, That There Is A Sort Of Education In Which Parents Should Train Their Sons, Not As Being Useful Or Necessary, But Because It Is Liberal Or Noble.

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

Temperance Is A Mean With Regard To Pleasures.

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

Sacrifice To God

The Beauty Of The Soul Shines Out When A Man Bears With Composure One Heavy Mischance After Another, Not Because He Does Not Feel Them, But Because He Is A Man Of High And Heroic Temper.

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 Their Adventures Do Not Succeed, However, They Run Away; But It Was The Mark Of A Brave Man To Face Things That Are, And Seem, Terrible For A Man, Because It Is Noble To Do So And Disgraceful Not To Do So.

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

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

Bravery Is A Mean State Concerned With Things That Inspire Confidence And With Things Fearful ... And Leading Us To Choose Danger And To Face It, Either Because To Do So Is Noble, Or Because Not To Do So Is Base. But To Court Death As An Escape From Poverty, Or From Love, Or From Some Grievous Pain, Is No Proof Of Bravery, But Rather Of Cowardice.

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

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

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.

[hope Is] The Dream Of A Waking Man.

Funny Inspirational

The Activity Of Happiness Must Occupy An Entire Lifetime; For One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make.

Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

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.

It Is Not The Possessions But The Desires Of Mankind Which Require To Be Equalized.

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

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

Where The Laws Are Not Supreme, There Demagogues Spring Up.

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

Life In The True Sense Is Perceiving Or Thinking.

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

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

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.

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

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

It Is Possible To Fail In Many Ways...while To Succeed Is Possible Only In One Way.

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.

Of Old, The Demagogue Was Also A General, And Then Democracies Changed Into Tyrannies. Most Of The Ancient Tyrants Were Originally Demagogues. They Are Not So Now, But They Were Then; And The Reason Is That They Were Generals And Not Orators, For Oratory Had Not Yet Come Into Fashion.

It Is Easy To Perform A Good Action, But Not Easy To Acquire A Settled Habit Of Performing Such Actions.

Melancholy Men Of All Others Are Most Witty, Which Causeth Many Times A Divine Ravishment, And A Kinde Of Enthusiasmus, Which Stirreth Them Up To Bee Excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, Etc.

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.

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.

What Is Common To Many Is Least Taken Care Of, For All Men Have Greater Regard For What Is Their Own Than What They Possess In Common With Others.

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

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

Of The Irrational Part Of The Soul Again One Division Appears To Be Common To All Living Things, And Of A Vegetative Nature.

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

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

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

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

Adventure Is Worthwhile.

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

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

Happiness Depends Upon Ourselves.

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.

Teenagers These Days Are Out Of Control. They Eat Like Pigs, They Are Disrespectful Of Adults, They Interrupt And Contradict Their Parents, And They Terrorize Their Teachers.

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

Virtue Means Doing The Right Thing, In Relation To The Right Person, At The Right Time, To The Right Extent, In The Right Manner, And For The Right Purpose. Thus, To Give Money Away Is Quite A Simple Task, But For The Act To Be Virtuous, The Donor Must Give To The Right Person, For The Right Purpose, In The Right Amount, In The Right Manner, And At The Right Time.

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

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

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.

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

In All Things Of Nature There Is Something Of The Marvelous.

A Good Style Must Have An Air Of Novelty, At The Same Time Concealing Its Art.

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

It Is Our Actions And The Soul's Active Exercise Of Its Functions That We Posit (as Being Happiness).

Shipping Magnate Of The 20th Century If Women Didn't Exist, All The Money In The World Would Have No Meaning.

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

Doubt Is The Beginning Of Wisdom

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.

A Thing Chosen Always As An End And Never As A Means We Call Absolutely Final. Now Happiness Above All Else Appears To Be Absolutely Final In This Sense, Since We Always Choose It For Its Own Sake And Never As A Means To Something Else.

There Are, Then, Three States Of Mind ... Two Vices--that Of Excess, And That Of Defect; And One Virtue--the Mean; And All These Are In A Certain Sense Opposed To One Another; For The Extremes Are Not Only Opposed To The Mean, But Also To One Another; And The Mean Is Opposed To The Extremes.

Friends Are An Aid To The Young, To Guard Them From Error; To The Elderly, To Attend To Their Wants And To Supplement Their Failing Power Of Action; To Those In The Prime Of Life, To Assist Them To Noble Deeds.

It Is Of Itself That The Divine Thought Thinks (since It Is The Most Excellent Of Things), And Its Thinking Is A Thinking On Thinking.

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

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

Saying The Words That Come From Knowledge Is No Sign Of Having It.

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.

Wickedness Is Nourished By Lust.

Nature Does Nothing Without A Purpose. In Children May Be Observed The Traces And Seeds Of What Will One Day Be Settled Psychological Habits, Though Psychologically A Child Hardly Differs For The Time Being From An Animal.

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.

Even The Best Of Men In Authority Are Liable To Be Corrupted By Passion. We May Conclude Then That The Law Is Reason Without Passion, And It Is Therefore Preferable To Any Individual.

Rightness In Our Choice Of An End Is Secured By [moral] Virtue.

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

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

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

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

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.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

A Tragedy Is That Moment Where The Hero Comes Face To Face With His True Identity.

. . . The Man Is Free, We Say, Who Exists For His Own Sake And Not For Another's.

The First Essential Responsibility Of The State Is Control Of The Market-place: There Must Be Some Official Charged With The Duty Of Seeing That Honest Dealing And Good Order Prevail. For One Of The Well-nigh Essential Activities Of All States Is The Buying And Selling Of Goods To Meet Their Mutual Basic Needs; This Is The Quickest Way To Self-sufficiency, Which Seems To Be What Moves Men To Combine Under A Single Constitution.

...the Life Which Is Best For Men, Both Separately, As Individuals, And In The Mass, As States, Is The Life Which Has Virtue Sufficiently Supported By Material Resources To Facilitate Participation In The Actions That Virtue Calls For.

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

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

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

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered.

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

Each Human Being Is Bred With A Unique Set Of Potentials That Yearn To Be Fulfilled As Surely As The Acorn Yearns To Become The Oak Within It.

Knowledge Of The Fact Differs From Knowledge Of The Reason For The Fact.

Jealousy Is Both Reasonable And Belongs To Reasonable Men, While Envy Is Base And Belongs To The Base, For The One Makes Himself Get Good Things By Jealousy, While The Other Does Not Allow His Neighbour To Have Them Through Envy.

The Good Citizen Need Not Of Necessity Possess The Virtue Which Makes A Good Man.

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

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

The Good Of Man Is The Active Exercise Of His Soul's Faculties. This Exercise Must Occupy A Complete Lifetime. One Swallow Does Make A Spring, Nor Does One Fine Day. Excellence Is A Habit, Not An Event.

Goodness Is To Do Good To The Deserving And Love The Good And Hate The Wicked, And Not To Be Eager To Inflict Punishment Or Take Vengeance, But To Be Gracious And Kindly And Forgiving.

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.

For What One Has To Learn To Do, We Learn By Doing.

Now The Greatest External Good We Should Assume To Be The Thing Which We Offer As A Tribute To The Gods, And Which Is Most Coveted By Men Of High Station, And Is The Prize Awarded For The Noblest Deeds; And Such A Thing Is Honor, For Honor Is Clearly The Greatest Of External Goods.

He Is Courageous Who Endures And Fears The Right Thing, For The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Times.

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.

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