Background Image

...

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.

-Aristotle

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Thus It Is Thought

Aristotle

...

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.

Views: 30789

Topic

More From Aristotle

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

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 Actuality Of Thought Is Life.

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

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

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

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.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain. Therefore, It Is Imperative For Persons To Act In Accordance With Their Nature And Develop Their Latent Talents, In Order To Be Content And Complete.

Happiness Is Self-connectedness.

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

Philosophy Begins With Wonder.

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.

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

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.

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

And Yet The True Creator Is Necessity, Which Is The Mother Of Invention.

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.

A Likely Impossibility Is Always Preferable To An Unconvincing Possibility.

Boundaries Don't Protect Rivers, People Do.

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.

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.

It Is Not Easy For A Person To Do Any Great Harm When His Tenure Of Office Is Short, Whereas Long Possession Begets Tyranny.

Nothing Is What Rocks Dream About

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

Happiness Depends On Ourselves.

Happiness Is The Settling Of The Soul Into Its Most Appropriate Spot.

All Earthquakes And Disasters Are Warnings; There’s Too Much Corruption In The World

Worthless Persons Appointed To Have Supreme Control Of Weighty Affairs Do A Lot Of Damage.

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

What Is The Highest Good In All Matters Of Action? To The Name, There Is Almost Complete Agreement; For Uneducated And Educated Alike Call It Happiness, And Make Happiness Identical With The Good Life And Successful Living. They Disagree, However, About The Meaning Of Happiness.

The Science That Studies The Supreme Good For Man Is Politics.

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.

Pay Attention To The Young, And Make Them Just As Good As Possible.

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.

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

Greed Has No Boundaries

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

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

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.

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 Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor; It Is The One Thing That Cannot Be Learned From Others; And It Is Also A Sign Of Genius, Since A Good Metaphor Implies An Intuitive Perception Of The Similarity Of The Dissimilar.

Fine Friendship Requires Duration Rather Than Fitful Intensity.

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

The Quality Of Life Is Determined By Its Activities.

We Maintain, And Have Said In The Ethics, If The Arguments There Adduced Are Of Any Value, That Happiness Is The Realization And Perfect Exercise Of Virtue, And This Not Conditional, But Absolute. And I Used The Term 'conditional' To Express That Which Is Indispensable, And 'absolute' To Express That Which Is Good In Itself.

Money Is A Guarantee That We Can Have What We Want In The Future

Guarantees That

They - Young People Have Exalted Notions, Because They Have Not Been Humbled By Life Or Learned Its Necessary Limitations; Moreover, Their Hopeful Disposition Makes Them Think Themselves Equal To Great Things - And That Means Having Exalted Notions. They Would Always Rather Do Noble Deeds Than Useful Ones: Their Lives Are Regulated More By Moral Feeling Than By Reasoning - All Their Mistakes Are In The Direction Of Doing Things Excessively And Vehemently. They Overdo Everything - They Love Too Much, Hate Too Much, And The Same With Everything Else.

Peace Is More Difficult Than War.

To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn

One Would Have Thought That It Was Even More Necessary To Limit Population Than Property; And That The Limit Should Be Fixed By Calculating The Chances Of Mortality In The Children, And Of Sterility In Married Persons. The Neglect Of This Subject, Which In Existing States Is So Common, Is A Never-failing Cause Of Poverty Among The Citizens; And Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

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

A King Ruleth As He Ought, A Tyrant As He Lists, A King To The Profit Of All, A Tyrant Only To Please A Few.

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

It Is A Part Of Probability That Many Improbable Things Will Happen.

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

...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 Ultimate Value Of Life Depends Upon Awareness And The Power Of Contemplation Rather Than Upon Mere Survival.

The Life Of The Intellect Is The Best And Pleasantest For Man, Because The Intellect More Than Anything Else Is The Man. Thus It Will Be The Happiest Life As Well.

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

The Ensouled Is Distinguished From The Unsouled By Its Being Alive. Now Since Being Alive Is Spoken Of In Many Ways, Even If Only One Of These Is Present, We Say That The Thing Is Alive, If, For Instance, There Is Intellect Or Perception Or Spatial Movement And Rest Or Indeed Movement Connected With Nourishment And Growth And Decay. It Is For This Reason That All The Plants Are Also Held To Be Alive . . .

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

Knowing What Is Right Does Not Make A Sagacious Man.

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

Learning Is Not Child's Play; We Cannot Learn Without Pain.

We Give Up Leisure In Order That We May Have Leisure, Just As We Go To War In Order That We May Have Peace.

The Roots Of Education Are Bitter, But The Fruit Is Sweet.

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

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

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.

Money Was Established For Exchange, But Interest Causes It To Be Reproduced By Itself. Therefore This Way Of Earning Money Is Greatly In Conflict With The Natural Law.

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.

Opinion Involves Belief (for Without Belief In What We Opine We Cannot Have An Opinion), And In The Brutes Though We Often Find Imagination We Never Find Belief.

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.

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.

What Soon Grows Old? Gratitude.

He Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy Whereas The Man Of No Virtue Or Ability Is His Own Worst Enemy And Is Afraid Of Solitude.

A Whole Is That Which Has A Beginning, A Middle And An End.

Now, The Causes Being Four, It Is The Business Of The Student Of Nature To Know About Them All, And If He Refers His Problems Back To All Of Them, He Will Assign The "why" In The Way Proper To His Science-the Matter, The Form, The Mover, That For The Sake Of Which.

The Greater The Length, The More Beautiful Will The Piece Be By Reason Of Its Size, Provided That The Whole Be Perspicuous.

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

A True Friend Is One Soul In Two Bodies.

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.

Man Is By Nature A Political Animal.

There Is A Cropping-time In The Races Of Men, As In The Fruits Of The Field; And Sometimes, If The Stock Be Good, There Springs Up For A Time A Succession Of Splendid Men; And Then Comes A Period Of Barrenness.

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.

For Good Is Simple, Evil Manifold.

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

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.

It Was Through The Feeling Of Wonder That Men Now And At First Began To Philosophize.

If 'bounded By A Surface' Is The Definition Of Body There Cannot Be An Infinite Body Either Intelligible Or Sensible.

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

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

Therefore, The Good Of Man Must Be The End Of The Science Of Politics.

Without Friends No One Would Choose To Live, Though He Had All Other Goods.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

The Pleasures Arising From Thinking And Learning Will Make Us Think And Learn All The More. 1153a 23

Nicomachean Ethics

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

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

The Laws Are, And Ought To Be, Relative To The Constitution, And Not The Constitution To The Laws. A Constitution Is The Organization Of Offices In A State, And Determines What Is To Be The Governing Body, And What Is The End Of Each Community. But Laws Are Not To Be Confounded With The Principles Of The Constitution; They Are The Rules According To Which The Magistrates Should Administer The State, And Proceed Against Offenders.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Authority Is No Source For Truth.

There Are Some Jobs In Which It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Virtuous.

Happiness Depends Upon Ourselves.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Character Is Made By Many Acts; It May Be Lost By A Single One.

Friendship Is Communion.

Both Oligarch And Tyrant Mistrust The People, And Therefore Deprive Them Of Their Arms.

The Man Who Confers A Favour Would Rather Not Be Repaid In The Same Coin.

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

All Flatterers Are Mercenary, And All Low-minded Men Are Flatterers.

Hence Both Women And Children Must Be Educated With An Eye To The Constitution, If Indeed It Makes Any Difference To The Virtue Of A City-state That Its Children Be Virtuous, And Its Women Too. And It Must Make A Difference, Since Half The Free Population Are Women, And From Children Come Those Who Participate In The Constitution.

Anybody Can Become Angry - That Is Easy, But To Be Angry With The Right Person And To The Right Degree And At The Right Time And For The Right Purpose, And In The Right Way - That Is Not Within Everybody's Power And Is Not Easy.

One Cannot Say Of Something That It Is And That It Is Not In The Same Respect At The Same Time.

Of Mankind In General, The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole.

Character Education

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.

Those Who Cannot Bravely Face Danger Are The Slaves Of Their Attackers.

American Veterans

The Avarice Of Mankind Is Insatiable.

Not To Know Of What Things One Should Demand Demonstration, And Of What One Should Not, Argues Want Of Education.

Some Persons Hold That, While It Is Proper For The Lawgiver To Encourage And Exhort Men To Virtue On Moral Grounds, In The Expectation That Those Who Have Had A Virtuous Moral Upbringing Will Respond, Yet He Is Bound To Impose Chastisement And Penalties On The Disobedient And Ill-conditioned, And To Banish The Incorrigible Out Of The State Altogether. For (they Argue) Although The Virtuous Man, Who Guides His Life By Moral Ideals, Will Be Obedient To Reason, The Base, Whose Desires Are Fixed On Pleasure, Must Be Chastised By Pain, Like A Beast Of Burden.

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

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

It Concerns Us To Know The Purposes We Seek In Life, For Then, Like Archers Aiming At A Definite Mark, We Shall Be More Likely To Attain What We Want.

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.

No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Fitness Motivational

There Is Simple Ignorance, Which Is The Source Of Lighter Offenses, And Double Ignorance, Which Is Accompanied By A Conceit Of Wisdom.

Rhetoric Is Useful Because Truth And Justice Are In Their Nature Stronger Than Their Opposites; So That If Decisions Be Made, Not In Conformity To The Rule Of Propriety, It Must Have Been That They Have Been Got The Better Of Through Fault Of The Advocates Themselves: And This Is Deserving Reprehension.

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.

Evil Draws Men Together.

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

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

If The State Cannot Be Entirely Composed Of Good Men, And Yet Each Citizen Is Expected To Do His Own Business Well, And Must Therefore Have Virtue, Still Inasmuch As All The Citizens Cannot Be Alike, The Virtue Of The Citizen And Of The Good Man Cannot Coincide. All Must Have The Virtue Of The Good Citizen - Thus, And Thus Only, Can The State Be Perfect; But They Will Not Have The Virtue Of A Good Man, Unless We Assume That In The Good State All The Citizens Must Be Good.

Men Must Be Able To Engage In Business And Go To War, But Leisure And Peace Are Better; They Must Do What Is Necessary And Indeed What Is Useful, But What Is Honorable Is Better. On Such Principles Children And Persons Of Every Age Which Requires Education Should Be Trained.

Since We Think We Understand When We Know The Explanation, And There Are Four Types Of Explanation (one, What It Is To Be A Thing; One, That If Certain Things Hold It Is Necessary That This Does; Another, What Initiated The Change; And Fourth, The Aim), All These Are Proved Through The Middle Term.

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.

Fate Of Empires Depends On The Education Of Youth

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

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.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

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.

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

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

The Energy Or Active Exercise Of The Mind Constitutes Life.

In Painting, The Most Brilliant Colors, Spread At Random And Without Design, Will Give Far Less Pleasure Than The Simplest Outline Of A Figure.

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

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

Misfortune Shows Those Who Are Not Really Friends.

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

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

The Most Perfect Political Community Is One In Which The Middle Class Is In Control, And Outnumbers Both Of The Other Classes.

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.

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

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

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

It Is Best To Rise From Life As From A Banquet, Neither Thirsty Nor Drunken.

To Perceive Is To Suffer.

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

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.

Plot Is Character Revealed By Action.

Neither Should We Forget The Mean, Which At The Present Day Is Lost Sight Of In Perverted Forms Of Government; For Many Practices Which Appear To Be Democratical Are The Ruin Of Democracies, . . Those Who Think 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.

Think As The Wise Men Think, But Talk Like The Simple People Do.

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.

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

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

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.

For Imitation Is Natural To Man From His Infancy. Man Differs From Other Animals Particularly In This, That He Is Imitative, And Acquires His Rudiments Of Knowledge In This Way; Besides, The Delight In It Is Universal.

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

All Men By Nature Desire To Know. An Indication Of This Is The Delight We Take In Our Senses; For Even Apart From Their Usefulness They Are Loved For Themselves...

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Also A Doubt As To What Is To Be The Supreme Power In The State: - Is It The Multitude? Or The Wealthy? Or The Good? Or The One Best Man? Or A Tyrant?

All Friendly Feelings Toward Others Come From The Friendly Feelings A Person Has For Himself.

Happiness Is A Sort Of Action.

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.

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

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

[i]t Is Rather The Case That We Desire Something Because We Believe It To Be Good Than That We Believe A Thing To Be Good Because We Desire It. It Is The Thought That Starts Things Off.

It Is In Justice That The Ordering Of Society Is Centered.

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

A Man Who Examines Each Subject From A Philosophical Standpoint Cannot Neglect Them: He Has To Omit Nothing, And State The Truth About Each Topic.

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

Trending Author

Terrence McNally

Leonard Bernstein

Category