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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.

-Aristotle

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The Purpose Of The

Aristotle

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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.

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The So-called Pythagoreans, Who Were The First To Take Up Mathematics, Not Only Advanced This Subject, But Saturated With It, They Fancied That The Principles Of Mathematics Were The Principles Of All Things.

. .we Would Have To Say That Hereditary Succession Is Harmful. You May Say The King, Having Sovereign Power, Will Not In That Case Hand Over To His Children. But It Is Hard To Believe That: It Is A Difficult Achievement, Which Expects Too Much Virtue Of Human Nature.

The Final Cause, Then, Produces Motion Through Being Loved.

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

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

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

To Die, And Thus Avoid Poverty Or Love, Or Anything Painful, Is Not The Part Of A Brave Man, But Rather Of A Coward; For It Is Cowardice To Avoid Trouble, And The Suicide Does Not Undergo Death Because It Is Honorable, But In Order To Avoid Evil.

With The Truth, All Given Facts Harmonize; But With What Is False, The Truth Soon Hits A Wrong Note.

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

The Secret To Humor Is Surprise.

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

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

Leisure Of Itself Gives Pleasure And Happiness And Enjoyment Of Life, Which Are Experienced, Not By The Busy Man, But By Those Who Have Leisure.

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

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

Bad People...are In Conflict With Themselves; They Desire One Thing And Will Another, Like The Incontinent Who Choose Harmful Pleasures Instead Of What They Themselves Believe To Be Good.

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 A Sort Of Action.

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

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.

In General, What Is Written Must Be Easy To Read And Easy To Speak; Which Is The Same.

Every Realm Of Nature Is Marvelous.

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

Poetry Is Finer And More Philosophical Than History; For Poetry Expresses The Universal, And History Only The Particular.

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

The Many Are More Incorruptible Than The Few; They Are Like The Greater Quantity Of Water Which Is Less Easily Corrupted Than A Little.

Art Is A Higher Type Of Knowledge Than Experience.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

The Arousing Of Prejudice, Pity, Anger, And Similar Emotions Has Nothing To Do With The Essential Facts, But Is Merely A Personal Appeal To The Man Who Is Judging The Case.

Character Is Revealed Through Action.

... The Good For Man Is An Activity Of The Soul In Accordance With Virtue, Or If There Are More Kinds Of Virtue Than One, In Accordance With The Best And Most Perfect Kind.

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

The Line Has Magnitude In One Way, The Plane In Two Ways, And The Solid In Three Ways, And Beyond These There Is No Other Magnitude Because The Three Are All.

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

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.

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

Without Virtue It Is Difficult To Bear Gracefully The Honors Of Fortune.

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.

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

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

Friendship Is Two Souls Inhabiting One Body.

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

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.

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

The True Forms Of Government, Therefore, Are Those In Which The One, Or The Few, Or The Many, Govern With A View To The Common Interest; But Governments Which Rule With A View To The Private Interest, Whether Of The One Or Of The Few, Or Of The Many, Are Perversions. For The Members Of A State, If They Are Truly Citizens, Ought To Participate In Its Advantages.

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

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.

The Activity Of God, Which Is Transcendent In Blessedness, Is The Activity Of Contemplation; And Therefore Among Human Activities That Which Is Most Akin To The Divine Activity Of Contemplation Will Be The Greatest Source Of Happiness.

In Part, Art Completes What Nature Cannot Elaborate; And In Part It Imitates Nature.

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.

The Guest Will Judge Better Of A Feast Than The Cook

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.

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

Distance Does Not Break Off The Friendship Absolutely, But Only The Activity Of It.

Long Distance Relationship

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

Misfortune Shows Those Who Are Not Really Friends.

A Friend Is A Second Self.

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

Man First Begins To Philosophize When The Necessities Of Life Are Supplied.

The Best Things Are Placed Between Extremes.

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

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.

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

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

All Men Desire By Nature To Know.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

And This Lies In The Nature Of Things: What People Are Potentially Is Revealed In Actuality By What They Produce.

Happiness Is Prosperity Combined With Virtue.

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

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.

We Praise A Man Who Feels Angry On The Right Grounds And Against The Right Persons And Also In The Right Manner At The Right Moment And For The Right Length Of Time.

The Brave Man, If He Be Compared With The Coward, Seems Foolhardy; And, If With The Foolhardy Man, Seems A Coward.

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

If There Is Any Kind Of Animal Which Is Female And Has No Male Separate From It, It Is Possible That This May Generate A Young One From Itself. No Instance Of This Worthy Of Any Credit Has Been Observed Up To The Present At Any Rate, But One Case In The Class Of Fishes Makes Us Hesitate. No Male Of The So-called Erythrinus Has Ever Yet Been Seen, But Females, And Specimens Full Of Roe, Have Been Seen. Of This, However, We Have As Yet No Proof Worthy Of Credit.

The Goal Of War Is Peace, Of Business, Leisure

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

Lacking Something

The Young Are Heated By Nature As Drunken Men By Wine.

Our Youth Should Also Be Educated With Music And Physical Education.

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

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

We Can Do Noble Acts Without Ruling The Earth And Sea.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

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

He Who Takes His Fill Of Every Pleasure ... Becomes Depraved; While He Who Avoids All Pleasures Alike ... Becomes Insensible.

Laws, When Good, Should Be Supreme; And That The Magistrate Or Magistrates Should Regulate Those Matters Only On Which The Laws Are Unable To Speak With Precision Owing To The Difficulty Of Any General Principle Embracing All Particulars.

It Is This Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences-makes Them, As The Poets Tell Us, 'charm The Crowd's Ears More Finely.' Educated Men Lay Down Broad General Principles; Uneducated Men Argue From Common Knowledge And Draw Obvious Conclusions.

For The Real Difference Between Humans And Other Animals Is That Humans Alone Have Perception Of Good And Evil, Just And Unjust, Etc. It Is The Sharing Of A Common View In These Matters That Makes A Household And A State.

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

A Promise Made Must Be A Promise Kept.

Civil Confusions Often Spring From Trifles But Decide Great Issues.

For The Lesser Evil Is Reckoned A Good In Comparison With The Greater Evil, Since The Lesser Evil Is Rather To Be Chosen Than The Greater. .

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

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

Those Who Act Receive The Prizes.

Moral Virtue Is A Mean . . . Between Two Vices, One Of Excess And The Other Of Defect; . . . It Is Such A Mean Because It Aims At Hitting The Middle Point In Feelings And In Actions. This Is Why It Is A Hard Task To Be Good, For It Is Hard To Find The Middle Point In Anything.

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

Anger Is Always Concerned With Individuals, ... Whereas Hatred Is Directed Also Against Classes: We All Hate Any Thief And Any Informer. Moreover, Anger Can Be Cured By Time; But Hatred Cannot. The One Aims At Giving Pain To Its Object, The Other At Doing Him Harm; The Angry Man Wants His Victim To Feel; The Hater Does Not Mind Whether They Feel Or Not.

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

Special Care Should Be Taken Of The Health Of The Inhabitants, Which Will Depend Chiefly On The Healthiness Of The Locality And Of The Quarter To Which They Are Exposed, And Secondly On The Use Of Pure Water; This Latter Point Is By No Means A Secondary Consideration. For The Elements Which We Use The Most And Oftenest For The Support Of The Body Contribute Most To Health, And Among Those Are Water And Air. Wherefore, In All Wise States, If There Is Want Of Pure Water, And The Supply Is Not All Equally Good, The Drinking Water Ought To Be Separated From That Which Is Used For Other Purposes.

Excellence Is Not An Art. It Is The Habit Of Practice.

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.

Happiness, Whether Consisting In Pleasure Or Virtue, Or Both, Is More Often Found With Those Who Are Highly Cultivated In Their Minds And In Their Character, And Have Only A Moderate Share Of External Goods, Than Among Those Who Possess External Goods To A Useless Extent But Are Deficient In Higher Qualities.

The Best Political Community Is Formed By Citizens Of The Middle Class.

Fortune Favours The Bold.

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

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

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

Whereas The Law Is Passionless, Passion Must Ever Sway The Heart Of Man.

At First He Who Invented Any Art That Went Beyond The Common Perceptions Of Man Was Naturally Admired By Men, Not Only Because There Was Something Useful In The Inventions, But Because He Was Thought Wise And Superior To The Rest. But As More Arts Were Invented, And Some Were Directed To The Necessities Of Life, Others To Its Recreation, The Inventors Of The Latter Were Always Regarded As Wiser Than The Inventors Of The Former, Because Their Branches Of Knowledge Did Not Aim At Utility.

Of Cases Where A Man Is Truthful Both In Speech And Conduct When No Considerations Of Honesty Come In, From An Habitual Sincerity Of Disposition. Such Sincerity May Be Esteemed A Moral Excellence; For The Lover Of Truth, Who Is Truthful Even When Nothing Depends On It, Will A Fortiori Be Truthful When Some Interest Is At Stake, Since Having All Along Avoided Falsehood For Its Own Sake, He Will Assuredly Avoid It When It Is Morally Base; And This Is A Disposition That We Praise.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

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

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

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.

Quality Is Not An Act, It Is A Habit.

Evidence From Torture May Be Considered Completely Untrustworthy

Human Good Turns Out To Be Activity Of Soul Exhibiting Excellence, And If There Is More Than One Sort Of Excellence, In Accordance With The Best And Most Complete.foroneswallowdoesnot Makea Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

The Most Beautiful Colors Laid On At Random, Give Less Pleasure Than A Black-and-white Drawing.

Black And White

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.

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.

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.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain.

Persuasion Is Effected Through The Medium Of The Hearers, When They Shall Have Been Brought To A State Of Excitement Under The Influence Of Speech; For We Do Not, When Influenced By Pain Or Joy, Or Partiality Or Dislike, Award Our Decisions In The Same Way; About Which Means Of Persuasion Alone, I Declare That The System-mongers Of The Present Day Busy Themselves.

It Is No Easy Task To Be Good.

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

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.

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

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.

People Never Know Each Other Until They Have Eaten A Certain Amount Of Salt Together.

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.

Friends Hold A Mirror Up To Each Other; Through That Mirror They Can See Each Other In Ways That Would Not Otherwise Be Accessible To Them, And It Is This Mirroring That Helps Them Improve Themselves As Persons.

The Citizens Begin By Giving Up Some Part Of The Constitution, And So With Greater Ease The Government Change Something Else Which Is A Little More Important, Until They Have Undermined The Whole Fabric Of The State.

Hope Is A Waking Dream.

In A Race, The Quickest Runner Can Never Overtake The Slowest, Since The Pursuer Must First Reach The Point Whence The Pursued Started, So That The Slower Must Always Hold A Lead.

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

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

When You Ask A Dumb Question, You Get A Smart Answer.

Life Is Only Meaningful When We Are Striving For A Goal .

We Must Be Neither Cowardly Nor Rash But Courageous.

...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.

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

The Goodness Or Badness, Justice Or Injustice, Of Laws Varies Of Necessity With The Constitution Of States. This, However, Is Clear, That The Laws Must Be Adapted To The Constitutions. But If So, True Forms Of Government Will Of Necessity Have Just Laws, And Perverted Forms Of Government Will Have Unjust Laws.

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

Teaching Is The Highest Form Of Understanding.

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

We Are What We Repeatedly Do.

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

In The Perfect State The Good Man Is Absolutely The Same As The Good Citizen; Whereas In Other States The Good Citizen Is Only Good Relatively To His Own Form Of Government.

Happiness Comes From Theperfect Practice Of Virtue.

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?

What Is The Essence Of Life? To Serve Others And To Do Good.

Thinking Is Different From Perceiving And Is Held To Be In Part Imagination, In Part Judgment

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

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.

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

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

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.

The Good Man Is He For Whom, Because He Is Virtuous, The Things That Are Absolutely Good Are Good; It Is Also Plain That His Use Of These Goods Must Be Virtuous And In The Absolute Sense Good.

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.

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

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

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

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.

So It Is Clear That The Search For What Is Just Is A Search For The Mean; For The Law Is The Mean.

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

Men Regard It As Their Right To Return Evil For Evil And, If They Cannot, Feel They Have Lost Their Liberty.

We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence. But They Hesitate, Waiting For The Other Fellow To Make The First Move-and He, In Turn, Waits For You.

Through Discipline Comes Freedom.

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

The Best Way To Avoid Envy Is To Deserve The Success You Get.

There Is Always Something New Coming Out Of Africa.

Most Men Appear To Think That The Art Of Despotic Government Is Statesmanship, And What Men Affirm To Be Unjust And Inexpedient In Their Own Case They Are Not Ashamed Of Practicing Towards Others; They Demand Just Rule For Themselves, But Where Other Men Are Concerned They Care Nothing About It. Such Behavior Is Irrational; Unless The One Party Is, And The Other Is Not, Born To Serve, In Which Case Men Have A Right To Command, Not Indeed All Their Fellows, But Only Those Who Are Intended To Be Subjects; Just As We Ought Not To Hunt Mankind, Whether For Food Or Sacrifice . .

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

The Precepts Of The Law May Be Comprehended Under These Three Points: To Live Honestly, To Hurt No Man Willfully, And To Render Every Man His Due Carefully.

At The Intersection Where Your Gifts, Talents, And Abilities Meet A Human Need; Therein You Will Discover Your Purpose

In A Word, Acts Of Any Kind Produce Habits Or Characters Of The Same Kind. Hence We Ought To Make Sure That Our Acts Are Of A Certain Kind; For The Resulting Character Varies As They Vary. It Makes No Small Difference, Therefore, Whether A Man Be Trained In His Youth Up In This Way Or That, But A Great Difference, Or Rather All The Difference.

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

It May Be Argued That Peoples For Whom Philosophers Legislate Are Always Prosperous.

To Be Always Seeking After The Useful Does Not Become Free And Exalted Souls.

Whereas Happiness Is The Highest Good, Being A Realization And Perfect Practice Of Virtue, Which Some Can Attain, While Others Have Little Or None Of It, The Various Qualities Of Men Are Clearly The Reason Why There Are Various Kinds Of States And Many Forms Of Government; For Different Men Seek After Happiness In Different Ways And By Different Means, And So Make For Themselves Different Modes Of Life And Forms Of Government.

In Everything, It Is No Easy Task To Find The Middle.

...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.

Women Who Are With Child Should Be Careful Of Themselves; They Should Take Exercise And Have A Nourishing Diet. The First Of These Prescriptions The Legislator Will Easily Carry Into Effect By Requiring That They Should Take A Walk Daily To Some Temple, Where They Can Worship The Gods Who Preside Over Birth. Their Minds, However, Unlike Their Bodies, They Ought To Keep Quiet, For The Offspring Derive Their Natures From Their Mothers As Plants Do From Earth.

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.

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

Men Are Marked From The Moment Of Birth To Rule Or Be Ruled.

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.

That Which Most Contributes To The Permanence Of Constitutions Is The Adaptation Of Education To The Form Of Government, And Yet In Our Own Day This Principle Is Universally Neglected. The Best Laws, Though Sanctioned By Every Citizen Of The State, Will Be Of No Avail Unless The Young Are Trained By Habit And Education In The Spirit Of The Constitution.

Because The Rich Are Generally Few In Number, While The Poor Are Many, They Appear To Be Antagonistic, And As The One Or The Other Prevails They Form The Government. Hence Arises The Common Opinion That There Are Two Kinds Of Government - Democracy And Oligarchy.

The Best Tragedies Are Conflicts Between A Hero And His Destiny.

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.

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.

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

Bodies In Motion

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.

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