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We Must Not Listen To Those Who Advise Us 'being Men To Think Human Thoughts, And Being Mortal To Think Mortal Thoughts' But Must Put On Immortality As Much As Possible And Strain Every Nerve To Live According To That Best Part Of Us, Which, Being Small In Bulk, Yet Much More In Its Power And Honour Surpasses All Else.

-Aristotle

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We Must Not Listen

Aristotle

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We Must Not Listen To Those Who Advise Us 'being Men To Think Human Thoughts, And Being Mortal To Think Mortal Thoughts' But Must Put On Immortality As Much As Possible And Strain Every Nerve To Live According To That Best Part Of Us, Which, Being Small In Bulk, Yet Much More In Its Power And Honour Surpasses All Else.

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For Just As For A Flute-player, A Sculptor, Or An Artist, And, In General, For All Things That Have A Function Or Activity, The Good And The Well Is Thought To Reside In The Function, So Would It Seem To Be For Man, If He Has A Function.

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

Legislative Enactments Proceed From Men Carrying Their Views A Long Time Back; While Judicial Decisions Are Made Off Hand.

The Society That Loses Its Grip On The Past Is In Danger, For It Produces Men Who Know Nothing But The Present, And Who Are Not Aware That Life Had Been, And Could Be, Different From What It Is.

Man By Nature Wants To Know.

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

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

Yes The Truth Is That Men's Ambition And Their Desire To Make Money Are Among The Most Frequent Causes Of Deliberate Acts Of Injustice.

Great And Frequent Reverses Can Crush And Mar Our Bliss Both By The Pain They Cause And By The Hindrance They Offer To Many Activities. Yet Nevertheless Even In Adversity Nobility Shines Through, When A Man Endures Repeated And Severe Misfortune With Patience, Not Owing To Insensibility But From Generosity And Greatness Of Soul.

He Who Has Overcome His Fears Will Truly Be Free.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

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 Revealed Through Action.

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.

So It Is Naturally With The Male And The Female; The One Is Superior, The Other Inferior; The One Governs, The Other Is Governed; And The Same Rule Must Necessarily Hold Good With Respect To All Mankind.

The Law Does Not Expressly Permit Suicide, And What It Does Not Permit It Forbids.

The Error Of Socrates Must Be Attributed To The False Notion Of Unity From Which He Starts. Unity There Should Be, Both Of The Family And Of The State, But In Some Respects Only. For There Is A Point At Which A State May Attain Such A Degree Of Unity As To Be No Longer A State, Or At Which, Without Actually Ceasing To Exist, It Will Become An Inferior State, Like Harmony Passing Into Unison, Or Rhythm Which Has Been Reduced To A Single Foot. The State, As I Was Saying, Is A Plurality Which Should Be United And Made Into A Community By Education

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

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

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

We Must Speak First About The Division Of Land And About Those Who Cultivate It: Who Should They Be And What Kind Of Person? We Do Not Agree With Those Who Have Said That Property Should Be Communally Owned, But We Do Believe That There Should Be A Friendly Arrangement For Its Common Use, And That None Of The Citizens Should Be Without Means Of Support.

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

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...

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

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

Comedy Aims At Representing Men As Worse, Tragedy As Better Than In Actual Life.

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

...virtue Is Not Merely A State In Conformity With The Right Principle, But One That Implies The Right Principle; And The Right Principle In Moral Conduct Is Prudence.

There Is A Foolish Corner In The Brain Of The Wisest Man.

Victory Is Plesant, Not Only To Those Who Love To Conquer, Bot To All; For There Is Produced An Idea Of Superiority, Which All With More Or Less Eagerness Desire.

The Greatest Thing By Far Is To Be A Master Of Metaphor.

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

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.

Thus Every Action Must Be Due To One Or Other Of Seven Causes: Chance, Nature, Compulsion, Habit, Reasoning, Anger, Or Appetite.

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.

Happiness Is A Thing Honored And Perfect. This Seems To Be Borne Out By The Fact That It Is A First Principle Or Starting-point, Since All Other Things That All Men Do Are Done For Its Sake; And That Which Is The First Principle And Cause Of Things Good We Agree To Be Something Honorable And Divine.

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

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

Of Means Of Persuading By Speaking There Are Three Species: Some Consist In The Character Of The Speaker; Others In The Disposing The Hearer A Certain Way; Others In The Thing Itself Which Is Said, By Reason Of Its Proving, Or Appearing To Prove The Point.

A Change In The Shape Of The Body Creates A Change In The State Of The Soul.

It Makes No Difference Whether A Good Man Has Defrauded A Bad Man, Or A Bad Man Defrauded A Good Man, Or Whether A Good Or Bad Man Has Committed Adultery: The Law Can Look Only To The Amount Of Damage Done.

The Ideal Man Takes Joy In Doing Favors For Others.

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.

Business Or Toil Is Merely Utilitarian. It Is Necessary But Does Not Enrich Or Ennoble A Human Life.

If You Prove The Cause, You At Once Prove The Effect; And Conversely Nothing Can Exist Without Its Cause.

A Line Is Not Made Up Of Points. ... In The Same Way, Time Is Not Made Up Parts Considered As Indivisible 'nows.' Part Of Aristotle's Reply To Zeno's Paradox Concerning Continuity.

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

Revolutions Are Not About Trifles, But Spring From Trifles.

There Are, Then, Three States Of Mind ... Two Vices--that Of Excess, And That Of Defect; And One Virtue--the Mean; And All These Are In A Certain Sense Opposed To One Another; For The Extremes Are Not Only Opposed To The Mean, But Also To One Another; And The Mean Is Opposed To The Extremes.

...we Are All Inclined To ... Direct Our Inquiry Not By The Matter Itself, But By The Views Of Our Opponents; And, Even When Interrogating Oneself, One Pushes The Inquiry Only To The Point At Which One Can No Longer Offer Any Opposition. Hence A Good Inquirer Will Be One Who Is Ready In Bringing Forward The Objections Proper To The Genus, And That He Will Be When He Has Gained An Understanding Of The Differences.

The Vices Respectively Fall Short Of Or Exceed What Is Right In Both Passions And Actions, While Virtue Both Finds And Chooses That Which Is Intermediate.

Greatness Of Spirit Is Accompanied By Simplicity And Sincerity.

The Rattle Is A Toy Suited To The Infant Mind, And Education Is A Rattle Or Toy For Children Of Larger Growth.

The True End Of Tragedy Is To Purify The Passions.

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.

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

People Generally Despise Where They Flatter.

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

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

They Who Are To Be Judges Must Also Be Performers.

No Tyrant Need Fear Till Men Begin To Feel Confident In Each Other.

A State Is Not A Mere Society, Having A Common Place, Established For The Prevention Of Mutual Crime And For The Sake Of Exchange. Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Mere Companionship.

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.

Love Well, Be Loved And Do Something Of Value.

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

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.

In Seeking For Justice Men Seek For The Mean Or Neutral, For The Law Is The Mean. Again, Customary Laws Have More Weight, And Relate To More Important Matters, Than Written Laws, And A Man May Be A Safer Ruler Than The Written Law, But Not Safer Than The Customary Law.

95% Of Everything You Do Is The Result Of Habit.

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

Art Is A Higher Type Of Knowledge Than Experience.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Choice, Is Thought To Aim At Some Good; And For This Reason The Good Has Rightly Been Declared To Be That At Which All Things Aim.

Yellow-colored Objects Appear To Be Gold

True Happiness Comes From Gaining Insight And Growing Into Your Best Possible Self. Otherwise All You're Having Is Immediate Gratification Pleasure, Which Is Fleeting And Doesn't Grow You As A Person.

No One Would Choose A Friendless Existence On Condition Of Having All The Other Things In The World.

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.

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.

To Write Well, Express Yourself Like The Common People, But Think Like A Wise Man.

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.

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

And What Has Come To Prevail In Democracies Is The Very Reverse Of Beneficial, In Those, That Is, Which Are Regarded As The Most Democratically Run. The Reason For This Lies In The Failure Properly To Define Liberty. For There Are Two Marks By Which Democracy Is Thought To Be Defined: "sovereignty Of The Majority" And "liberty." "just" Is Equated With What Is Equal, And The Decision Of The Majority As To What Is Equal Is Regarded As Sovereign; And Liberty Is Seen In Terms Of Doing What One Wants.

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

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

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.

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.

We Are Masters Of Our Actions From The Beginning Up To The Very End. But, In The Case Of Our Habits, We Are Only Masters Of Their Commencement - Each Particular Little Increase Being As Imperceptible As In The Case Of Bodily Infirmities. But Yet Our Habits Are Voluntary, In That It Was Once In Our Power To Adopt Or Not To Adopt Such Or Such A Course Of Conduct.

For Pleasure Is A State Of Soul, And To Each Man That Which He Is Said To Be A Lover Of Is Pleasant.

Worms Are The Intestines Of The Earth.

The Greatest Virtues Are Those Which Are Most Useful To Other Persons.

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.

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

It Is Of Itself That The Divine Thought Thinks (since It Is The Most Excellent Of Things), And Its Thinking Is A Thinking On Thinking.

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.

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

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.

Accordingly, The Poet Should Prefer Probable Impossibilities To Improbable Possibilities. The Tragic Plot Must Not Be Composed Of Irrational Parts.

As Our Acts Vary, Our Habits Will Follow In Their Course.

There Is More Evidence To Prove That Saltness [of The Sea] Is Due To The Admixture Of Some Substance, Besides That Which We Have Adduced. Make A Vessel Of Wax And Put It In The Sea, Fastening Its Mouth In Such A Way As To Prevent Any Water Getting In. Then The Water That Percolates Through The Wax Sides Of The Vessel Is Sweet, The Earthy Stuff, The Admixture Of Which Makes The Water Salt, Being Separated Off As It Were By A Filter.

Nor Was Civil Society Founded Merely To Preserve The Lives Of Its Members; But That They Might Live Well: For Otherwise A State Might Be Composed Of Slaves, Or The Animal Creation... Nor Is It An Alliance Mutually To Defend Each Other From Injuries, Or For A Commercial Intercourse. But Whosoever Endeavors To Establish Wholesome Laws In A State, Attends To The Virtues And Vices Of Each Individual Who Composes It; From Whence It Is Evident, That The First Care Of Him Who Would Found A City, Truly Deserving That Name, And Not Nominally So, Must Be To Have His Citizens Virtuous.

Your Happiness Depends On You Alone.

True Happiness Flows From The Possession Of Wisdom And Virtue And Not From The Possession Of External Goods.

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

Words Of Wisdom

No One Who Desires To Become Good Will Become Good Unless He Does Good Things.

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

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.

Before You Heal The Body You Must First Heal The Mind

It Is More Difficult To Organize A Peace Than To Win A War; But The Fruits Of Victory Will Be Lost If The Peace Is Not Organized.

A True Disciple Shows His Appreciation By Reaching Further Than His Teacher.

Since The Whole City Has One End, It Is Manifest That Education Should Be One And The Same For All, And That It Should Be Public, And Not Private - Not As At Present, When Every One Looks After His Own Children Separately, And Gives Them Separate Instruction Of The Sort Which He Thinks Best; The Training In Things Which Are Of Common Interest Should Be The Same For All. Neither Must We Suppose That Any One Of The Citizens Belongs To Himself, For They All Belong To The State, And Are Each Of Them A Part Of The State, And The Care Of Each Part Is Inseparable From The Care Of The Whole.

Those Who Have Been Eminent In Philosophy, Politics, Poetry, And The Arts Have All Had Tendencies Toward Melancholia.

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

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

Of Old, The Demagogue Was Also A General, And Then Democracies Changed Into Tyrannies. Most Of The Ancient Tyrants Were Originally Demagogues. They Are Not So Now, But They Were Then; And The Reason Is That They Were Generals And Not Orators, For Oratory Had Not Yet Come Into Fashion.

If You See A Man Approaching With The Obvious Intent Of Doing You Good, Run For Your Life. Consider Pleasures As They Depart, Not As They Come.

...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.

What The Statesman Is Most Anxious To Produce Is A Certain Moral Character In His Fellow Citizens, Namely A Disposition To Virtue And The Performance Of Virtuous Actions.

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

Equality Is Of Two Kinds, Numerical And Proportional; By The First I Mean Sameness Of Equality In Number Or Size; By The Second, Equality Of Ratios.

Beauty Is A Gift Of God.

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.

Humor Is The Only Test Of Gravity, And Gravity Of Humor; For A Subject Which Will Not Bear Raillery Is Suspicious, And A Jest Which Will Not Bear Serious Examination Is False Wit.

A Friend Is Simply One Soul In Two Bodies.

Of All The Varieties Of Virtues, Liberalism Is The Most Beloved.

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.

Men Become Builders By Building And Lyreplayers By Playing The Lyre; So Too We Become Just By Doing Just Acts, Temperate By Doing Temperate Acts, Brave By Doing Brave Acts.

There's Many A Slip Between The Cup And The Lip.

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

Democracy Is The Form Of Government In Which The Free Are Rulers, And Oligarchy In Which The Rich; It Is Only An Accident That The Free Are The Many And The Rich Are The Few.

The Soul Is The Form Of The Body

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

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.

A Man Is His Own Best Friend; Therefore He Ought To Love Himself Best.

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

Anybody Can Get Hit Over The Head.

Although It May Be Difficult In Theory To Know What Is Just And Equal, The Practical Difficulty Of Inducing Those To Forbear Who Can, If They Like, Encroach, Is Far Greater, For The Weaker Are Always Asking For Equality And Justice, But The Stronger Care For None Of These Things.

Thou Wilt Find Rest From Vain Fancies If Thou Doest Every Act In Life As Though It Were Thy Last.

We Can't Learn Without Pain.

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.

You Should Never Think Without An Image.

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

We Laugh At That Which We Cannot Bear To Face.

All Learning Is Derived From Things Previously Known.

Every Effort Therefore Must Be Made To Perpetuate Prosperity. And, Since That Is To The Advantage Of The Rich As Well As The Poor, All That Accrues From The Revenues Should Be Collected Into A Single Fund And Distributed In Block Grants To Those In Need, If Possible In Lump Sums Large Enough For The Acquisition Of A Small Piece Of Land, But If Not, Enough To Start A Business, Or Work In Agriculture. And If That Cannot Be Done For All, The Distribution Might Be By Tribes Or Some Other Division Each In Turn.

We Should Behave To Our Friends As We Would Wish Our Friends Behave To Us

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

Nature Creates Nothing Without A Purpose.

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

A Constitution Is The Arrangement Of Magistracies In A State.

The Moral Virtues, Then, Are Produced In Us Neither By Nature Nor Against Nature. Nature, Indeed, Prepares In Us The Ground For Their Reception, But Their Complete Formation Is The Product Of Habit.

Character Gives Us Qualities, But It Is In Our Actions — What We Do — That We Are Happy Or The Reverse.

The Intelligence Consists Not Only In The Knowledge But Also In The Skill To Apply The Knowledge Into Practice.

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

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.

Greed Has No Boundaries

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

Courage Is The First Virtue That Makes All Other Virtues Possible.

Anything Whose Presence Or Absence Makes No Discernible Difference Is No Essential Part Of The Whole.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

It Has Been Well Said That 'he Who Has Never Learned To Obey Cannot Be A Good Commander.' The Two Are Not The Same, But The Good Citizen Ought To Be Capable Of Both; He Should Know How To Govern Like A Freeman, And How To Obey Like A Freeman - These Are The Virtues Of A Citizen.

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.

Happiness, Then, Is Co-extensive With Contemplation, And The More People Contemplate, The Happier They Are; Not Incidentally, But In Virtue Of Their Contemplation, Because It Is In Itself Precious. Thus Happiness Is A Form Of Contemplation.

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.

Every Art And Every Inquiry, And Similarly Every Action And Pursuit, Is Thought To Aim At Some Good; And For This Reason The Good Has Rightly Been Declared To Be That At Which All Things Aim.

Through Discipline Comes Freedom.

When The Looms Spin By Themselves, We'll Have No Need For Slaves.

Metaphysics Involves Intuitive Knowledge Of Unprovable Starting-points Concepts And Truth And Demonstrative Knowledge Of What Follows From Them.

Words Of Wisdom

What We Expect, That We Find.

Law Of Attraction

Education Is The Best Provision For Old Age.

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.

The Perversions Are As Follows: Of Royalty, Tyranny; Of Aristocracy, Oligarchy; Of Constitutional Government, Democracy.

Where Your Talents And The Needs Of The World Cross, Therein Lies Your Vocation. These Two, Your Talents And The Needs Of The World, Are The Great Wake Up Calls To Your True Vocation In Life... To Ignore This, Is In Some Sense, Is To Lose Your Soul.

A Friend Of Everyone Is A Friend Of No One

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

As Often As We Do Good, We Offer Sacrifices To God.

Sacrifice To God

You Can Never Learn Anything That You Did Not Already Know

The Appropriate Age For Marrige Is Around Eighteen And Thirty-seven For Man

Funny Relationship

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

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

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

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

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.

Now All Orators Effect Their Demonstrative Proofs By Allegation Either Of Enthymems Or Examples, And, Besides These, In No Other Way Whatever.

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.

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

Shipping Magnate Of The 20th Century If Women Didn't Exist, All The Money In The World Would Have No Meaning.

One Citizen Differs From Another, But The Salvation Of The Community Is The Common Business Of Them All. This Community Is The Constitution; The Virtue Of The Citizen Must Therefore Be Relative To The Constitution Of Which He Is A Member.

How Strange It Is That Socrates, After Having Made The Children Common, Should Hinder Lovers From Carnal Intercourse Only, But Should Permit Love And Familiarities Between Father And Son Or Between Brother And Brother, Than Which Nothing Can Be More Unseemly, Since Even Without Them Love Of This Sort Is Improper. How Strange, Too, To Forbid Intercourse For No Other Reason Than The Violence Of The Pleasure, As Though The Relationship Of Father And Son Or Of Brothers With One Another Made No Difference.

Purpose ... Is Held To Be Most Closely Connected With Virtue, And To Be A Better Token Of Our Character Than Are Even Our Acts.

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

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

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

Important Relationships

The Proof That The State Is A Creation Of Nature And Prior To The Individual Is That The Individual, When Isolated, Is Not Self-sufficing.

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

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

Democracy Arose From Men's Thinking That If They Are Equal In Any Respect They Are Equal Absolutely.

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

A Common Danger Unites Even The Bitterest Enemies.

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