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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.

-Aristotle

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The Legislator Should Direct

Aristotle

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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.

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Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth

That In The Soul Which Is Called Mind (by Mind I Mean That Whereby The Soul Thinks And Judges) Is, Before It Thinks, Not Actually Any Real Thing. For This Reason It Cannot Reasonably Be Regarded As Blended With The Body

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Let Us Be Well Persuaded That Everyone Of Us Possesses Happiness In Proportion To His Virtue And Wisdom, And According As He Acts In Obedience To Their Suggestion.

We Are The Sum Of Our Actions, And Therefore Our Habits Make All The Difference.

We Work To Earn Our Leisure.

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

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.

All Things Are Full Of Gods.

Human Beings Are Curious By Nature.

When You Feel Yourself Lacking Something, Send Your Thoughts Towards Your Intimate And Search For The Divinity That Lives Within You.

Lacking Something

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.

Happiness Is Thought To Depend On Leisure; For We Are Busy That We May Have Leisure, And Make War That We May Live In Peace.

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

Why Do Men Seek Honour? Surely In Order To Confirm The Favorable Opinion They Have Formed Of Themselves.

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

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

Every Community Is An Association Of Some Kind And Every Community Is Established With A View To Some Good; For Everyone Always Acts In Order To Obtain That Which They Think Good. But, If All Communities Aim At Some Good, The State Or Political Community, Which Is The Highest Of All, And Which Embraces All The Rest, Aims At Good In A Greater Degree Than Any Other, And At The Highest Good.

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

Think As Wise Men Do, But Speak As The Common People Do.

These Virtues Are Formed In Man By His Doing The Actions ... The Good Of Man Is A Working Of The Soul In The Way Of Excellence In A Complete Life.

The Soul Suffers When The Body Is Diseased Or Traumatized, While The Body Suffers When The Soul Is Ailing.

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.

For Both Excessive And Insufficient Exercise Destroy One's Strength, And Both Eating And Drinking Too Much Or Too Little Destroy Health, Whereas The Right Quantity Produces, Increases And Preserves It. So It Is The Same With Temperance, Courage And The Other Virtues. This Much Then, Is Clear: In All Our Conduct It Is The Mean That Is To Be Commended.

A Tyrant Must Put On The Appearance Of Uncommon Devotion To Religion. Subjects Are Less Apprehensive Of Illegal Treatment From A Ruler Whom They Consider God-fearing And Pious. On The Other Hand, They Do Less Easily Move Against Him, Believing That He Has The Gods On His Side.

To Let Them Share In The Highest Offices Is To Take A Risk; Inevitably, Their Unjust Standards Will Cause Them To Commit Injustice, And Their Lack Of Judgement Will Lead Them Into Error. On The Other Hand There Is A Risk In Not Giving Them A Share, And In Their Non Participation, For When There Are Many Who Have No Property And No Honours They Inevitably Constitute A Huge Hostile Element In The State. But It Can Still Remain Open To Them To Participate In Deliberating And Judging.

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

He Who Sees Things Grow From The Beginning Will Have The Best View Of Them.

Whether We Call It Sacrifice, Or Poetry, Or Adventure, It Is Always The Same Voice That Calls.

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.

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

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 Life Of Theoretical Philosophy Is The Best And Happiest A Man Can Lead. Few Men Are Capable Of It And Then Only Intermittently. For The Rest There Is A Second-best Way Of Life, That Of Moral Virtue And Practical Wisdom.

Words Of Wisdom

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Wicked Men Obey For Fear, But The Good For Love.

Man, As An Originator Of Action, Is A Union Of Desire And Intellect.

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

We Must No More Ask Whether The Soul And Body Are One Than Ask Whether The Wax And The Figure Impressed On It Are One.

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

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

Rising Before Daylight Is Also To Be Commended; It Is A Healthy Habit, And Gives More Time For The Management Of The Household As Well As For Liberal Studies.

In Revolutions The Occasions May Be Trifling But Great Interest Are At Stake.

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

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

The Proof That You Know Something Is That You Are Able To Teach It

To Love Someone Is To Identify With Them.

In Cases Of This Sort, Let Us Say Adultery, Rightness And Wrongness Do Not Depend On Committing It With The Right Woman At The Right Time And In The Right Manner, But The Mere Fact Of Committing Such Action At All Is To Do Wrong.

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.

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

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

A Flatterer Is A Friend Who Is Your Inferior, Or Pretends To Be So.

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

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

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

Philosophy Can Make People Sick.

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

But The Whole Vital Process Of The Earth Takes Place So Gradually And In Periods Of Time Which Are So Immense Compared With The Length Of Our Life, That These Changes Are Not Observed, And Before Their Course Can Be Recorded From Beginning To End Whole Nations Perish And Are Destroyed.

A Goal Gets Us Motivated,while A Good Habit Keeps Us Stay Motivated.

Between Friends There Is No Need For Justice, But People Who Are Just Still Need The Quality Of Friendship; And Indeed Friendliness Is Considered To Be Justice In The Fullest Sense.

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

Nicomachean Ethics

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

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.

Health Is A Matter Of Choice, Not A Mystery Of Chance

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.

Young People Are In A Condition Like Permanent Intoxication, Because Life Is Sweet And They Are Growing.

Error Is Multiform (for Evil Is A Form Of The Unlimited, As In The Old Pythagorean Imagery, And Good Of The Limited), Whereas Success Is Possible In One Way Only (which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed - Easy To Miss The Target And Difficult To Hit It); So This Is Another Reason Why Excess And Deficiency Are A Mark Of Vice, And Observance Of The Mean A Mark Of Virtue: Goodness Is Simple, Badness Is Manifold.

The Attainment Of Truth Is Then The Function Of Both The Intellectual Parts Of The Soul. Therefore Their Respective Virtues Are Those Dispositions Which Will Best Qualify Them To Attain Truth.

If The Poor, For Example, Because They Are More In Number, Divide Among Themselves The Property Of The Rich,- Is Not This Unjust? . . This Law Of Confiscation Clearly Cannot Be Just.

Men Are Divided Between Those Who Are As Thrifty As If They Would Live Forever, And Those Who Are As Extravagant As If They Were Going To Die The Next Day.

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

The Aim Of Art Is To Represent Not The Outward Appearance Of Things, But Their Inward Significance.

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.

There Is No Genius Who Hasn't A Touch Of Insanity.

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

Words Of Wisdom

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.

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

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.

All Virtue Is Summed Up In Dealing Justly.

Freedom Is Obedience To Self-formulated Rules.

Nicomachean Ethics

In A Polity, Each Citizen Is To Possess His Own Arms, Which Are Not Supplied Or Owned By The State.

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.

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

We Are Better Able To Study Our Neighbours Than Ourselves, And Their Actions Than Our Own.

Hope Is A Waking Dream.

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.

All Men Seek One Goal: Success Or Happiness.

Equity Is That Idea Of Justice Which Contravenes The Written Law.

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.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

The Gods Too Are Fond Of A Joke.

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.

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

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.

One Who Faces And Who Fears The Right Things And From The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Time, Posseses Character Worthy Of Our Trust And Admiration.

A Courageous Person Is One Who Faces Fearful Things As He Ought And As Reason Directs For The Sake Of What Is Noble.

...for All Men Do Their Acts With A View To Achieving Something Which Is, In Their View, A Good.

Man Is A Goal-seeking Animal. His Life Only Has Meaning If He Is Reaching Out And Striving For His Goals.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Of Men But Of A Life, An Action

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

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.

Some Men Turn Every Quality Or Art Into A Means Of Making Money; This They Conceive To Be The End, And To The Promotion Of The End All Things Must Contribute.

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.

Neither Old People Nor Sour People Seem To Make Friends Easily; For There Is Little That Is Pleasant In Them.

The Energy Of The Mind Is The Essence Of Life.

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 Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

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.

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.

So The Good Has Been Well Explained As That At Which All Things Aim.

The Blood Of A Goat Will Shatter A Diamond.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Same Things Are Best Both For Individuals And For States, And These Are The Things Which The Legislator Ought To Implant In The Minds Of His Citizens.

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.

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

There Are, Then, These Three Means Of Effecting Persuasion. The Man Who Is To Be In Command Of Them Must, It Is Clear, Be Able (1) To Reason Logically, (2) To Understand Human Character And Goodness In Their Various Forms, And (3) To Understand The Emotions--that Is, To Name Them And Describe Them, To Know Their Causes And The Way In Which They Are Excited.

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.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

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

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

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

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

What Has Soul In It Differs From What Has Not, In That The Former Displays Life. Now This Word Has More Than One Sense, And Provided Any One Alone Of These Is Found In A Thing We Say That Thing Is Living. Living, That Is, May Mean Thinking Or Perception Or Local Movement And Rest, Or Movement In The Sense Of Nutrition, Decay And Growth. Hence We Think Of Plants Also As Living, For They Are Observed To Possess In Themselves An Originative Power Through Which They Increase Or Decrease In All Spatial Directions.

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

The Specific Excellence Of Verbal Expression In Poetry Is To Be Clear Without Being Low.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross; There Lies Your Vocation.

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

Happiness Is The Meaning And The Purpose Of Life, The Whole Aim And End Of Human Existence.

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

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

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

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.

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.

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.

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

It Is The Characteristic Of The Magnanimous Man To Ask No Favor But To Be Ready To Do Kindness To Others.

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

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

Governments Which Have A Regard To The Common Interest Are Constituted In Accordance With Strict Principles Of Justice, And Are Therefore True Forms; But Those Which Regard Only The Interest Of The Rulers Are All Defective And Perverted Forms, For They Are Despotic, Whereas A State Is A Community Of Freemen.

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.

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

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

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

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.

...happiness Is An Activity And A Complete Utilization Of Virtue, Not Conditionally But Absolutely.

Phronimos, Possessing Practical Wisdom . But The Only Virtue Special To A Ruler Is Practical Wisdom; All The Others Must Be Possessed, So It Seems, Both By Rulers And Ruled. The Virtue Of A Person Being Ruled Is Not Practical Wisdom But Correct Opinion; He Is Rather Like A Person Who Makes The Pipes, While The Ruler Is The One Who Can Play Them.

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because The True And The Just Are Naturally Superior To Their Opposites, So That, If Decisions Are Improperly Made, They Must Owe Their Defeat To Their Own Advocates; Which Is Reprehensible. Further, In Dealing With Certain Persons, Even If We Possessed The Most Accurate Scientific Knowledge, We Should Not Find It Easy To Persuade Them By The Employment Of Such Knowledge. For Scientific Discourse Is Concerned With Instruction, But In The Case Of Such Persons Instruction Is Impossible.

But What Is Happiness? If We Consider What The Function Of Man Is, We Find That Happiness Is A Virtuous Activity Of The Soul.

What Is Happiness

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.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

Of Actions Some Aim At What Is Necessary And Useful, And Some At What Is Honorable. And The Preference Given To One Or The Other Class Of Actions Must Necessarily Be Like The Preference Given To One Or Other Part Of The Soul And Its Actions Over The Other; There Must Be War For The Sake Of Peace, Business For The Sake Of Leisure, Things Useful And Necessary For The Sake Of Things Honorable.

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

Just As At The Olympic Games It Is Not The Handsomest Or Strongest Men Who Are Crowned With Victory But The Successful Competitors, So In Life It Is Those Who Act Rightly Who Carry Off All The Prizes And Rewards.

The Life Of Children, As Much As That Of Intemperate Men, Is Wholly Governed By Their Desires.

Courage Is The Mother Of All Virtues Because Without It, You Cannot Consistently Perform The Others.

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.

Evils Draw Men Together.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Experience Has Shown That It Is Difficult, If Not Impossible, For A Populous State To Be Run By Good Laws.

The Most Important Relationship We Can All Have Is The One You Have With Yourself, The Most Important Journey You Can Take Is One Of Self-discovery. To Know Yourself, You Must Spend Time With Yourself, You Must Not Be Afraid To Be Alone. Knowing Yourself Is The Beginning Of All Wisdom.

Important Relationships

Friendship Is Essentially A Partnership.

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

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

Friendship Is A Thing Most Necessary To Life, Since Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though Possessed Of All Other Advantages.

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

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.

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

In Poverty And Other Misfortunes Of Life, True Friends Are A Sure Refuge.

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

Words Of Wisdom

Happiness Is A State Of Activity.

There Are No Experienced Young People. Time Makes Experience.

Try Is A Noisy Way Of Doing Nothing.

All That We Do Is Done With An Eye To Something Else.

It Is Our Choice Of Good Or Evil That Determines Our Character, Not Our Opinion About Good Or Evil.

Our Characters Are The Result Of Our Conduct.

You Are What You Do Repeatedly.

Revolutions Are Not About Trifles, But Spring From Trifles.

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

The Greatest Crimes Are Caused By Surfeit, Not By Want.

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.

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

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