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To The Size Of The State There Is A Limit, As There Is To Plants, Animals And Implements, For None Of These Retain Their Facility When They Are Too Large.

-Aristotle

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To The Size Of

Aristotle

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To The Size Of The State There Is A Limit, As There Is To Plants, Animals And Implements, For None Of These Retain Their Facility When They Are Too Large.

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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

The Good Lawgiver Should Inquire How States And Races Of Men And Communities May Participate In A Good Life, And In The Happiness Which Is Attainable By Them.

All Persons Ought To Endeavor To Follow What Is Right, And Not What Is Established.

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.

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.

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.

Good Has Two Meanings: It Means That Which Is Good Absolutely And That Which Is Good For Somebody.

I Count Him Braver Who Overcomes His Desires Than Him Who Conquers His Enemies; For The Hardest Victory Is Over Self.

Those Who Act Receive The Prizes.

Man Is By Nature A Social Animal; An Individual Who Is Unsocial Naturally And Not Accidentally Is Either Beneath Our Notice Or More Than Human. Society Is Something That Precedes The Individual. Anyone Who Either Cannot Lead The Common Life Or Is So Self-sufficient As Not To Need To, And Therefore Does Not Partake Of Society, Is Either A Beast Or A God.

Excellence Or Virtue Is A Settled Disposition Of The Mind That Determines Our Choice Of Actions And Emotions And Consists Essentially In Observing The Mean Relative To Us ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Which Depends On Excess And That Which Depends On Defect.

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

... 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.

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

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.

Actual Knowledge Is Identical With Its Object: In The Individual, Potential Knowledge Is In Time Prior To Actual Knowledge, But In The Universe As A Whole It Is Not Prior Even In Time. Mind Is Not At One Time Knowing And At Another Not. When Mind Is Set Free From Its Present Conditions It Appears As Just What It Is And Nothing More: This Alone Is Immortal And Eternal (we Do Not, However, Remember Its Former Activity Because, While Mind In This Sense Is Impassible, Mind As Passive Is Destructible), And Without It Nothing Thinks.

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.

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

And It Is Characteristic Of Man That He Alone Has Any Sense Of Good And Evil, Of Just And Unjust, And The Like, And The Association Of Living Beings Who Have This Sense Makes Family And A State.

Anything That We Have To Learn To Do We Learn By The Actual Doing Of It; People Become Builders By Building And Instrumentalists By Playing Instruments. Similarily, We Become Just By Performing Just Acts, Temperate By Performing Temperate Ones, Brave By Performing Brave Ones.

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

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.

But Nothing Is Yet Clear On The Subject Of The Intellect And The Contemplative Faculty. However, It Seems To Be Another Kind Of Soul, And This Alone Admits Of Being Separated, As That Which Is Eternal From That Which Is Perishable, While It Is Clear From These Remarks That The Other Parts Of The Soul Are Not Separable, As Some Assert Them To Be, Though It Is Obvious That They Are Conceptually Distinct.

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

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

For One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer, Nor Does One Day; And So Too One Day, Or A Short Time, Does Not Make A Man Blessed And Happy.

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

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.

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

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

He Who Can Be, And Therefore Is, Another's, And He Who Participates In Reason Enough To Apprehend, But Not To Have, Is A Slave By Nature.

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

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

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

We Should Aim Rather At Leveling Down Our Desires Than Leveling Up Our Means.

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

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.

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.

The Form Of Government Is A Democracy When The Free, Who Are Also Poor And The Majority, Govern, And An Oligarchy When The Rich And The Noble Govern, They Being At The Same Time Few In Number.

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

As For The Story, Whether The Poet Takes It Ready Made Or Constructs It For Himself, He Should First Sketch Its General Outline, And Then Fill In The Episodes And Amplify In Detail.

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

Imagination Is A Sort Of Faint Perception.

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.

To Be Ignorant Of Motion Is To Be Ignorant Of Nature

By Myth I Mean The Arrangement Of The Incidents

Happiness Seems To Require A Modicum Of External Prosperity.

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.

What Is The Highest Of All Goods Achievable By Action? ...both The General Run Of Man And People Of Superior Refinement Say That It Is Happiness ...but With Regard To What Happiness Is They Differ.

One May Go Wrong In Many Different Ways, But Right Only In One, Which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed.

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.

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

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

There Is An Ideal Of Excellence For Any Particular Craft Or Occupation; Similarly There Must Be An Excellent That We Can Achieve As Human Beings. That Is, We Can Live Our Lives As A Whole In Such A Way That They Can Be Judged Not Just As Excellent In This Respect Or In That Occupation, But As Excellent, Period. Only When We Develop Our Truly Human Capacities Sufficiently To Achieve This Human Excellent Will We Have Lives Blessed With Happiness.

For Legislators Make The Citizens Good By Forming Habits In Them, And This Is The Wish Of Every Legislator, And Those Who Do Not Effect It Miss Their Mark, And It Is In This That A Good Constitution Differs From A Bad One.

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

While The Faculty Of Sensation Is Dependent Upon The Body, Mind Is Separable From It

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

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

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.

Men Come Together In Cities In Order To Live: They Remain Together In Order To Live The Good Life

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

American Veterans

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.

Every Man Should Be Responsible To Others, Nor Should Any One Be Allowed To Do Just As He Pleases; For Where Absolute Freedom Is Allowed, There Is Nothing To Restrain The Evil Which Is Inherent In Every Man.

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

Aristotle Said: "evil Brings Men Together."

Every Great Genius Has An Admixture Of Madness.

Not To Get What You Have Set Your Heart On Is Almost As Bad As Getting Nothing At All.

So, If We Must Give A General Formula Applicable To All Kinds Of Soul, We Must Describe It As The First Actuality [entelechy] Of Anatural Organized Body.

The Soul Never Thinks Without A Picture.

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

In Bad Or Corrupted Natures The Body Will Often Appear To Rule Over The Soul, Because They Are In An Evil And Unnatural Condition. At All Events We May Firstly Observe In Living Creatures Both A Despotical And A Constitutional Rule; For The Soul Rules The Body With A Despotical Rule, Whereas The Intellect Rules The Appetites With A Constitutional And Royal Rule. And It Is Clear That The Rule Of The Soul Over The Body, And Of The Mind And The Rational Element Over The Passionate, Is Natural And Expedient; Whereas The Equality Of The Two Or The Rule Of The Inferior Is Always Hurtful.

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

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

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

Life In The True Sense Is Perceiving Or Thinking.

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

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

The End Is Included Among Goods Of The Soul, And Not Among External Goods.

Neither By Nature, Then, Nor Contrary To Nature Do The Virtues Arise In Us; Rather We Are Adapted By Nature To Receive Them, And Are Made Perfect By Habit.

The Worst Form Of Inequality Is To Try To Make Unequal Things Equal.

When You Have Thrown A Stone, You Cannot Afterwards Bring It Back Again, But Nevertheless You Are Responsible For Having Taken Up The Stone And Flung It, For The Origin Of The Act Was Within You. Similarly The Unjust And Profligate Might At The Outset Have Avoided Becoming So, And Therefore They Are So Voluntarily, Although When They Have Become Unjust And Profligate It Is No Longer Open To Them Not To Be So.

Authority Is No Source For Truth.

All Three States - The Lacedaemonian, The Cretan, And The Carthaginian - Nearly Resemble One Another, And Are Very Different From Any Others. Many Of The Carthaginian Institutions Are Excellent. The Superiority Of Their Constitution Is Proved By The Fact That The Common People Remains Loyal To The Constitution; The Carthaginians Have Never Had Any Rebellion Worth Speaking Of, And Have Never Been Under The Rule Of A Tyrant.

Virtue Makes Us Aim At The Right End, And Practical Wisdom Makes Us Take The Right Means.

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

God Has Many Names, Though He Is Only One Being.

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

All Teaching And All Intellectual Learning Come About From Already Existing Knowledge.

The Soul Is The Form Of The Body

The High-minded Man Does Not Bear Grudges, For It Is Not The Mark Of A Great Soul To Remember Injuries, But To Forget Them.

The Probable Is What Usually Happens.

But Is It Just Then That The Few And The Wealthy Should Be The Rulers? And What If They, In Like Manner, Rob And Plunder The People, - Is This Just?

The Aim Of The Wise Is Not To Secure Pleasure, But To Avoid Pain.

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

...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.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

For Though We Love Both The Truth And Our Friends, Piety Requires Us To Honor The Truth First.

In Practical Matters The End Is Not Mere Speculative Knowledge Of What Is To Be Done, But Rather The Doing Of It. It Is Not Enough To Know About Virtue, Then, But We Must Endeavor To Possess It, And To Use It, Or To Take Any Other Steps That May Make.

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

He Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.

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.

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

Prayers And Sacrifices Are Of No Avail.

But If Nothing But Soul, Or In Soul Mind, Is Qualified To Count, It Is Impossible For There To Be Time Unless There Is Soul, But Only That Of Which Time Is An Attribute, I.e. If Change Can Exist Without Soul.

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.

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

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.

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

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

Youth Is Easily Deceived Because It Is Quick To Hope.

A Period May Be Defined As A Portion Of Speech That Has In Itself A Beginning And An End, Being At The Same Time Not Too Big To Be Taken In At A Glance

If One Way Be Better Than Another, That You May Be Sure Is Nature's Way.

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

The Soul Is Characterized By These Capacities; Self-nutrition, Sensation, Thinking, And Movement.

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

Demonstration Is Also Something Necessary, Because A Demonstration Cannot Go Otherwise Than It Does, ... And The Cause Of This Lies With The Primary Premises/principles.

Words Of Wisdom

The Happy Life Is Regarded As A Life In Conformity With Virtue. It Is A Life Which Involves Effort And Is Not Spent In Amusement.

Life Cannot Be Lived, And Understood, Simultaneously.

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.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

Be A Free Thinker And Don't Accept Everything You Hear As Truth. Be Critical And Evaluate What You Believe In.

Perception Starts With The Eye.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

To Run Away From Trouble Is A Form Of Cowardice And, While It Is True That The Suicide Braves Death, He Does It Not For Some Noble Object But To Escape Some Ill.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When We Look At The Matter From Another Point Of View, Great Caution Would Seem To Be Required. For The Habit Of Lightly Changing The Laws Is An Evil, And, When The Advantage Is Small, Some Errors Both Of Lawgivers And Rulers Had Better Be Left; The Citizen Will Not Gain So Much By Making The Change As He Will Lose By The Habit Of Disobedience.

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.

A City Is Composed Of Different Kinds Of Men; Similar People Cannot Bring A City Into Existence.

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

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

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

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

The 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.

Both Self-restraint And Unrestraint Are A Matter Of Extremes As Compared With The Character Of The Mass Of Mankind; The Restrained Man Shows More And The Unrestrained Man Less Steadfastness Than Most Men Are Capable Of.

Revolutions Are Effected In Two Ways, By Force And By Fraud.

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

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

The Educated Differ From The Uneducated As Much As The Living From The Dead.

No One Praises Happiness As One Praises Justice, But We Call It A 'blessing,' Deeming It Something Higher And More Divine Than Things We Praise.

Democracy Is When The Indigent, And Not The Men Of Property, Are The Rulers.

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

It Is Their Character Indeed That Makes People Who They Are. But It Is By Reason Of Their Actions That They Are Happy Or The Reverse.

A Human Being Is A Naturally Political [animal].

The Soul Of Animals Is Characterized By Two Faculties, (a) The Faculty Of Discrimination Which Is The Work Of Thought And Sense, And (b) The Faculty Of Originating Local Movement.

A Poet's Object Is Not To Tell What Actually Happened But What Could Or Would Happen Either Probably Or Inevitably.... For This Reason Poetry Is Something More Scientific And Serious Than History, Because Poetry Tends To Give General Truths While History Gives Particular Facts.

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

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

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

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

The Principle Aim Of Gymnastics Is The Education Of All Youth And Not Simply That Minority Of People Highly Favored By Nature.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

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

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.

All Learning Is Derived From Things Previously Known.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Be Able To Entertain A Thought Without Accepting It.

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

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.

Law Is Order, And Good Law Is Good Order.

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

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.

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

Time Management

Hence Poetry Is Something More Philosophic And Of Graver Import Than History, Since Its Statements Are Of The Nature Rather Of Universals, Whereas Those Of History Are Singulars.

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

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.

Man Perfected By Society Is The Best Of All Animals; He Is The Most Terrible Of All When He Lives Without Law And Without Justice. If He Finds Himself An Individual Who Cannot Live In Society, Or Who Pretends He Has Need Of Only His Own Resources Do Not Consider Him As A Member Of Humanity; He Is A Savage Beast Or A God.

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

Any Change Of Government Which Has To Be Introduced Should Be One Which Men, Starting From Their Existing Constitutions, Will Be Both Willing And Able To Adopt, Since There Is Quite As Much Trouble In The Reformation Of An Old Constitution As In The Establishment Of A New One, Just As To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn.

No One Loves The Man Whom He Fears.

In The Many Forms Of Government Which Have Sprung Up There Has Always Been An Acknowledgement Of Justice And Proportionate Equality, Although Mankind Fail In Attaining Them, As Indeed I Have Already Explained. Democracy, For Example, Arises Out Of The Notion That Those Who Are Equal In Any Respect Are Equal In All Respects; Because Men Are Equally Free, They Claim To Be Absolutely Equal.

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

All Men, Or Most Men, Wish What Is Noble But Choose What Is Profitable; And While It Is Noble To Render A Service Not With An Eye To Receiving One In Return, It Is Profitable To Receive One. One Ought Therefore, If One Can, To Return The Equivalent Of Services Received, And To Do So Willingly; For One Ought Not To Make A Man One's Friend If One Is Unwilling To Return His Favors.

When We Deliberate It Is About Means And Not Ends.

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

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.

Indeed, We May Go Further And Assert That Anyone Who Does Not Delight In Fine Actions Is Not Even A Good Man.

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?

Wicked Me Obey From Fear; Good Men,from Love.

We Become Just By Performing Just Action, Temperate By Performing Temperate Actions, Brave By Performing Brave Action.

Art Not Only Imitates Nature, But Also Completes Its Deficiencies.

Wretched, Ephemeral Race, Children Of Chance And Tribulation, Why Do You Force Me To Tell You The Very Thing Which It Would Be Most Profitable For You Not To Hear? The Very Best Thing Is Utterly Beyond Your Reach: Not To Have Been Born, Not To Be, To Be Nothing. However, The Second Best Thing For You Is: To Die Soon.

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.

Some Things The Legislator Must Find Ready To His Hand In A State, Others He Must Provide. And Therefore We Can Only Say: May Our State Be Constituted In Such A Manner As To Be Blessed With The Goods Of Which Fortune Disposes (for We Acknowledge Her Power): Whereas Virtue And Goodness In The State Are Not A Matter Of Chance But The Result Of Knowledge And Purpose. A City Can Be Virtuous Only When The Citizens Who Have A Share In The Government Are Virtuous, And In Our State All The Citizens Share In The Government.

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

Once More: There Are Three Offices According To Whose Directions The Highest Magistrates Are Chosen In Certain States - Guardians Of The Law, Probuli, Councilors - Of These, The Guardians Of The Law Are An Aristocratical, The Probuli An Oligarchical, The Council A Democratical Institution.

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.

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

It Is No Easy Task To Be Good.

Those Who Have The Command Of The Arms In A Country Are Masters Of The State, And Have It In Their Power To Make What Revolutions They Please. [thus,] There Is No End To Observations On The Difference Between The Measures Likely To Be Pursued By A Minister Backed By A Standing Army, And Those Of A Court Awed By The Fear Of An Armed People.

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

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Meister Eckhart

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