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Virtue Also Depends On Ourselves. And So Also Does Vice. For Where We Are Free To Act We Are Also Free To Refrain From Acting, And Where We Are Able To Say No We Are Also Able To Say Yes; If Therefore We Are Responsible For Doing A Thing When To Do It Right, We Are Also Responsible For Not Doing It When Not To Do It Is Wrong, And If We Are Responsible For Rightly Not Doing A Thing, We Are Also Responsible For Wrongly Doing It.

-Aristotle

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Virtue Also Depends On

Aristotle

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Virtue Also Depends On Ourselves. And So Also Does Vice. For Where We Are Free To Act We Are Also Free To Refrain From Acting, And Where We Are Able To Say No We Are Also Able To Say Yes; If Therefore We Are Responsible For Doing A Thing When To Do It Right, We Are Also Responsible For Not Doing It When Not To Do It Is Wrong, And If We Are Responsible For Rightly Not Doing A Thing, We Are Also Responsible For Wrongly Doing It.

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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.

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To Leave The Number Of Births Unrestricted, As Is Done In Most States, Inevitably Causes Poverty Among The Citizens, And Poverty Produces Crime And Faction.

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Character Is Revealed Through Action.

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The Bad Man Is Continually At War With, And In Opposition To, Himself.

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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.

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A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State, Especially Of The Highest Of All. The Government Is Everywhere Sovereign In The State, And The Constitution Is In Fact The Government.

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

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.

A Young Man Is Not A Proper Hearer Of Lectures On Political Science; For He Is Inexperienced In The Actions That Occur In Life, But Its Discussions Start From These And Are About These; And, Further, Since He Tends To Follow His Passions, His Study Will Be Vain And Unprofitable, Because The End That Is Aimed At Is Not Knowledge But Action. And It Makes No Difference Whether He Is Young In Years Or Youthful In Character.

Those Who Assert That The Mathematical Sciences Say Nothing Of The Beautiful Or The Good Are In Error. For These Sciences Say And Prove A Great Deal About Them; If They Do Not Expressly Mention Them, But Prove Attributes Which Are Their Results Or Definitions, It Is Not True That They Tell Us Nothing About Them. The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

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

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

There Is No Great Genius Without A Mixture Of Madness.

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.

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

A Government Which Is Composed Of The Middle Class More Nearly Approximates To Democracy Than To Oligarchy, And Is The Safest Of The Imperfect Forms Of Government.

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

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

[prudence] Is The Virtue Of That Part Of The Intellect [the Calculative] To Which It Belongs; And . . . Our Choice Of Actions Will Not Be Right Without Prudence Any More Than Without Moral Virtue, Since, While Moral Virtue Enables Us To Achieve The End, Prudence Makes Us Adopt The Right Means To The End.

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.

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

We Have Next To Consider The Formal Definition Of Virtue.

Salt Water When It Turns Into Vapour Becomes Sweet, And The Vapour Does Not Form Salt Water When It Condenses Again. This I Know By Experiment. The Same Thing Is True In Every Case Of The Kind: Wine And All Fluids That Evaporate And Condense Back Into A Liquid State Become Water. They All Are Water Modified By A Certain Admixture, The Nature Of Which Determines Their Flavour.

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.

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

Everyone Honors The Wise.

Earthworms Are The Intenstines Of The Soil.

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.

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 . .

Law Is Mind Without Reason.

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.

We Ought, So Far As It Lies Within Our Power, To Aspire To Immortality, And Do All That We Can To Live In Conformity With The Highest That Is Within Us; For Even If It Is Small In Quantity, In Power And Preciousness, It Far Excels All The Rest.

It Is Not Always The Same Thing To Be A Good Man And A Good Citizen.

Inferiors Revolt In Order That They May Be Equal, And Equals That They May Be Superior. Such Is The State Of Mind Which Creates Revolutions.

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.

Men Acquire A Particular Quality By Constantly Acting In A Particular Way.

Take The Case Of Just Actions; Just Punishments And Chastisements Do Indeed Spring From A Good Principle, But They Are Good Only Because We Cannot Do Without Them - It Would Be Better That Neither Individuals Nor States Should Need Anything Of The Sort - But Actions Which Aim At Honor And Advantage Are Absolutely The Best. The Conditional Action Is Only The Choice Of A Lesser Evil; Whereas These Are The Foundation And Creation Of Good. A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life.

It Is The Mark Of An Educated Mind To Expect That Amount Of Exactness Which The Nature Of The Particular Subject Admits. It Is Equally Unreasonable To Accept Merely Probable Conclusions From A Mathematician And To Demand Strict Demonstration From An Orator.

For We Do Not Think That We Know A Thing Until We Are Acquainted With Its Primary Conditions Or First Principles, And Have Carried Our Analysis As Far As Its Simplest Elements.

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.

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.

The Basis Of A Democratic State Is Liberty

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.

Friendship Is Communion.

The Family Is The Association Established By Nature For The Supply Of Men's Everyday Wants.

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Fitness Motivational

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

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

Men Create Gods After Their Own Image, Not Only With Regard To Their Form But With Regard To Their Mode Of Life.

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

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

It [justice] Is Complete Virtue In The Fullest Sense, Because It Is The Active Exercise Of Complete Virtue; And It Is Complete Because Its Possessor Can Exercise It In Relation To Another Person, And Not Only By Himself.

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

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

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

Memory Is The Scribe Of The Soul.

There Also Appears To Be Another Element In The Soul, Which, Though Irrational, Yet In A Manner Participates In Rational Principle.

The Most Perfect Political Community Must Be Amongst Those Who Are In The Middle Rank, And Those States Are Best Instituted Wherein These Are A Larger And More Respectable Part, If Possible, Than Both The Other; Or, If That Cannot Be, At Least Than Either Of Them Separate.

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.

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

The Investigation Of The Truth Is In One Way Hard, In Another Easy. An Indication Of This Is Found In The Fact That No One Is Able To Attain The Truth Adequately, While, On The Other Hand, No One Fails Entirely, But Everyone Says Something True About The Nature Of All Things, And While Individually They Contribute Little Or Nothing To The Truth, By The Union Of All A Considerable Amount Is Amassed.

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.

Not Every Action Or Emotion However Admits Of The Observance Of A Due Mean. Indeed The Very Names Of Some Directly Imply Evil, For Instance Malice, Shamelessness, Envy, And, Of Actions, Adultery, Theft, Murder. All These And Similar Actions And Feelings Are Blamed As Being Bad In Themselves; It Is Not The Excess Or Deficiency Of Them That We Blame. It Is Impossible Therefore Ever To Go Right In Regard To Them - One Must Always Be Wrong.

Before You Heal The Body You Must First Heal The Mind

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

Self-sufficiency Is Both A Good And An Absolute Good.

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

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

All Art Is Concerned With Coming Into Being.

Irrational Passions Would Seem To Be As Much A Part Of Human Nature As Is Reason.

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation.

Academic Excellence

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.

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers.

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

We Become Just By The Practice Of Just Actions.

The Character Which Results From Wealth Is That Of A Prosperous Fool.

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.

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.

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

... 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.

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

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

The Majority Of Mankind Would Seem To Be Beguiled Into Error By Pleasure, Which, Not Being Really A Good, Yet Seems To Be So. So That They Indiscriminately Choose As Good Whatsoever Gives Them Pleasure, While They Avoid All Pain Alike As Evil.

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

A Good Man May Make The Best Even Of Poverty And Disease, And The Other Ills Of Life; But He Can Only Attain Happiness Under The Opposite Conditions

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

Hippocrates Is An Excellent Geometer But A Complete Fool In Everyday Affairs.

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

Plato Is My Friend, But Truth Is A Better Friend.

The Coward Calls The Brave Man Rash, The Rash Man Calls Him A Coward.

Authority Is No Source For Truth.

Now If There Is Any Gift Of The Gods To Men, It Is Reasonable That Happiness Should Be God-given, And Most Surely God-given Of All Human Things Inasmuch As It Is The Best. But This Question Would Perhaps Be More Appropriate To Another Inquiry; Happiness Seems, However, Even If It Is Not God-sent But Comes As A Result Of Virtue And Some Process Of Learning And Training, To Be Among The Most God-like Things; For That Which Is The Prize And End Of Virtue Seems To Be The Best Thing In The World, And Something God-like And Blessed.

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

Man's Best Friend Is One Who Wishes Well To The Object Of His Wish For His Sake, Even If No One Is To Know Of It.

What You Have To Learn To Do, You Learn By Doing.

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

A State Is An Association Of Similar Persons Whose Aim Is The Best Life Possible. What Is Best Is Happiness, And To Be Happy Is An Active Exercise Of Virtue And A Complete Employment Of It.

Meanness Is Incurable; It Cannot Be Cured By Old Age, Or By Anything Else.

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.

The Ridiculous Is Produced By Any Defect That Is Unattended By Pain, Or Fatal Consequences; Thus, An Ugly And Deformed Countenance Does Not Fail To Cause Laughter, If It Is Not Occasioned By Pain.

But The Virtues We Get By First Exercising Them, As Also Happens In The Case Of The Arts As Well. For The Things We Have To Learn Before We Can Do Them, We Learn By Doing Them, E.g. Men Become Builders By Building And Lyre Players By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

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

Speech Is The Representation Of The Mind, And Writing Is The Representation Of Speech.

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

If Liberty And Equality, As Is Thought By Some, Are Chiefly To Be Found In Democracy, They Will Be Best Attained When All Persons Alike Share In Government To The Utmost.

Democracies Have

If Something's Bound To Happen, It Will Happen.. Right Time, Right Person, And For The Best Reason.

A Friend Is A Second Self, So That Our Consciousness Of A Friend's Existence...makes Us More Fully Conscious Of Our Own Existence.

We Ought Not To Listen To Those Who Exhort Us, Because We Are Human, To Think Of Human Things....we Ought Rather To Take On Immortality As Much As Possible, And Do All That We Can To Live In Accordance With The Highest Element Within Us; For Even If Its Bulk Is Small, In Its Power And Value It Far Exceeds Everything.

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.

That Which Is In Locomotion Must Arrive At The Half-way Stage Before It Arrives At The Goal.

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.

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

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

When You Are Lonely, When You Feel Yourself An Alien In The World, Play Chess. This Will Raise Your Spirits And Be Your Counselor In War

Man Is The Metre Of All Things, The Hand Is The Instrument Of Instruments, And The Mind Is The Form Of Forms.

He Who Is To Be A Good Ruler Must Have First Been Ruled.

The Ideal Man Is His Own Best Friend And Takes Delight In Privacy.

If There Is Some End Of The Things We Do, Which We Desire For Its Own Sake, Clearly This Must Be The Good. Will Not Knowledge Of It, Then, Have A Great Influence On Life? Shall We Not, Like Archers Who Have A Mark To Aim At, Be More Likely To Hit Upon What We Should? If So, We Must Try, In Outline At Least, To Determine What It Is.

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

If You Would Understand Anything, Observe Its Beginning And Its Development

The Least Deviation From Truth Will Be Multiplied Later.

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

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.

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

Evils Draw Men Together.

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.

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.

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