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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.

-Aristotle

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We Must Speak First

Aristotle

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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.

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It Is True, Indeed, That The Account Plato Gives In 'timaeus' Is Different From What He Says In His So-called 'unwritten Teachings.'

Evidence From Torture May Be Considered Completely Untrustworthy

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.

Let Us Be Well Persuaded That Everyone Of Us Possesses Happiness In Proportion To His Virtue And Wisdom, And According As He Acts In Obedience To Their Suggestion.

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

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

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

A Democracy Exists Whenever Those Who Are Free And Are Not Well-off, Being In The Majority, Are In Sovereign Control Of Government, An Oligarchy When Control Lies With The Rich And Better-born, These Being Few.

The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

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

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 . .

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.

Happiness Is The Reward Of Virtue.

Error Is Multiform (for Evil Is A Form Of The Unlimited, As In The Old Pythagorean Imagery, And Good Of The Limited), Whereas Success Is Possible In One Way Only (which Is Why It Is Easy To Fail And Difficult To Succeed - Easy To Miss The Target And Difficult To Hit It); So This Is Another Reason Why Excess And Deficiency Are A Mark Of Vice, And Observance Of The Mean A Mark Of Virtue: Goodness Is Simple, Badness Is Manifold.

Finally, If Nothing Can Be Truly Asserted, Even The Following Claim Would Be False, The Claim That There Is No True Assertion.

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

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.

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

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

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

Courage Is The First Of Human Qualities Because It Is The Quality Which Guarantees The Others.

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

When There Is No Middle Class, And The Poor Greatly Exceed In Number, Troubles Arise, And The State Soon Comes To An End.

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

It Is Not Once Nor Twice But Times Without Number That The Same Ideas Make Their Appearance In The World.

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.

. . . Political Society Exists For The Sake Of Noble Actions, And Not Of Mere Companionship.

Most Persons Think That A State In Order To Be Happy Ought To Be Large; But Even If They Are Right, They Have No Idea Of What Is A Large And What A Small State.... To The Size Of States There Is A Limit, As There Is To Other Things, Plants, Animals, Implements; For None Of These Retain Their Natural Power When They Are Too Large Or Too Small, But They Either Wholly Lose Their Nature, Or Are Spoiled.

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

In The Laws It Is Maintained That The Best Constitution Is Made Up Of Democracy And Tyranny, Which Are Either Not Constitutions At All, Or Are The Worst Of All. But They Are Nearer The Truth Who Combine Many Forms; For The Constitution Is Better Which Is Made Up Of More Numerous Elements. The Constitution Proposed In The Laws Has No Element Of Monarchy At All; It Is Nothing But Oligarchy And Democracy, Leaning Rather To Oligarchy.

He Overcomes A Stout Enemy Who Overcomes His Own Anger.

All Human Happiness And Misery Take The Form Of Action.

The Physician Himself, If Sick, Actually Calls In Another Physician, Knowing That He Cannot Reason Correctly If Required To Judge His Own Condition While Suffering.

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

It Would Be Wrong To Put Friendship Before The Truth.

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

Greatness Of Soul Seems Therefore To Be As It Were A Crowning Ornament Of The Virtues; It Enhances Their Greatness, And It Cannot Exist Without Them. Hence It Is Hard To Be Truly Great-souled, For Greatness Of Soul Is Impossible Without Moral Nobility.

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.

Madness Is Badness Of Spirit, When One Seeks Profit From All Sources.

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.

Men Create The Gods After Their Own Images.

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

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

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?

Nothing In Life Is More Necessary Than Friendship.

To Unlearn Is As Hard As To Learn

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.

The Trade Of The Petty Usurer Is Hated With Most Reason: It Makes A Profit From Currency Itself, Instead Of Making It From The Process Which Currency Was Meant To Serve. Their Common Characteristic Is Obviously Their Sordid Avarice.

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

The Weak Are Always Anxious For Justice And Equality. The Strong Pay No Heed To Either.

The Generality Of Men Are Naturally Apt To Be Swayed By Fear Rather Than Reverence, And To Refrain From Evil Rather Because Of The Punishment That It Brings Than Because Of Its Own Foulness.

There Is Nothing Unequal As The Equal Treatment Of Unequals.

Equal Treatment

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.

Mothers Are Fonder Than Fathers Of Their Children Because They Are More Certain They Are Their Own.

The Greatest Victory Is Over Self.

Greatest Victory

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

We, On The Other Hand, Must Take For Granted That The Things That Exist By Nature Are, Either All Or Some Of Them, In Motion.

If Every Tool, When Ordered, Or Even Of Its Own Accord, Could Do The Work That Befits It... Then There Would Be No Need Either Of Apprentices For The Master Workers Or Of Slaves For The Lords.

Happiness Lies In Virtuous Activity, And Perfect Happiness Lies In The Best Activity, Which Is Contemplative

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.

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

Great Men Are Always Of A Nature Originally Melancholy.

Sophocles Said He Drew Men As They Ought To Be, And Euripides As They Were.

Tragedy Is An Imitation Not Only Of A Complete Action, But Of Events Inspiring Fear And Pity. Such An Effect Is Best Produced When The Events Come On Us By Surprise; And The Effect Is Heightened When, At The Same Time, They Follow As Cause And Effect. The Tragic Wonder Will Then Be Great Than If They Happened Of Themselves Or By Accident; For Even Coincidences Are Most Striking When They Have An Air Of Design.

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

Every Rascal Is Not A Thief, But Every Thief Is A Rascal.

Humility Is A Flower Which Does Not Grow In Everyone's Garden.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

A Friend Is A Second Self.

Marriage Is Like Retiring As A Bachelor And Getting A Sexual Pension. You Don't Have To Work For The Sex Any More, But You Only Get 65% As Much.

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

A Great City Is Not To Be Confounded With A Populous One.

If Men Are Given Food, But No Chastisement Nor Any Work, They Become Insolent.

There Are Still Two Forms Besides Democracy And Oligarchy; One Of Them Is Universally Recognized And Included Among The Four Principal Forms Of Government, Which Are Said To Be (1) Monarchy, (2) Oligarchy, (3) Democracy, And (4) The So-called Aristocracy Or Government Of The Best. But There Is Also A Fifth, Which Retains The Generic Name Of Polity Or Constitutional Government.

If Things Do Not Turn Out As We Wish, We Should Wish For Them As They Turn Out.

Now What Is Just And Right Is To Be Interpreted In The Sense Of 'what Is Equal'; And That Which Is Right In The Sense Of Being Equal Is To Be Considered With Reference To The Advantage Of The State, And The Common Good Of The Citizens. And A Citizen Is One Who Shares In Governing And Being Governed. He Differs Under Different Forms Of Government, But In The Best State He Is One Who Is Able And Willing To Be Governed And To Govern With A View To The Life Of Virtue.

Democracy 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 Light Of The Day Is Followed By Night, As A Shadow Follows A Body.

We Are What We Frequently Do.

Personal Growth

The State Comes Into Existence For The Sake Of Life And Continues To Exist For The Sake Of Good Life.

Pleasure In The Job Puts Perfection In The Work.

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.

We Must As Second Best, As People Say, Take The Least Of The Evils.

For Suppose That Every Tool We Had Could Perform Its Task, Either At Our Bidding Or Itself Perceiving The Need, And If-like The Statues Made By Dædalus Or The Tripods Of Hephæstus, Of Which The Poet Says That "self-moved They Enter The Assembly Of The Gods" - Shuttles In A Loom Could Fly To And Fro And A Plectrum Play A Lyre All Self-moved, Then Master-craftsmen Would Have No Need Of Servants Nor Masters Of Slaves.

To The Sober Person Adventurous Conduct Often Seems Insanity.

Liars When They Speak The Truth Are Not Believed.

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.

One Who Faces And Who Fears The Right Things And From The Right Motive, In The Right Way And At The Right Time, Posseses Character Worthy Of Our Trust And Admiration.

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

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

The High-minded Man Is Fond Of Conferring Benefits, But It Shames Him To Receive Them.

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.

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

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

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

The Beginning, As The Proverb Says, Is Half The Whole.

Character Is Determined By Choice, Not Opinion.

Friendship Is Communion.

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

Love Is The Cause Of Unity In All Things.

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

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

Black And White

But Since There Is But One Aim For The Entire State, It Follows That Education Must Be One And The Same For All, And That The Responsibility For It Must Be A Public One, Not The Private Affair Which It Now Is, Each Man Looking After His Own Children And Teaching Them Privately Whatever Private Curriculum He Thinks They Ought To Study.

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.

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

Goodness Is To Do Good To The Deserving And Love The Good And Hate The Wicked, And Not To Be Eager To Inflict Punishment Or Take Vengeance, But To Be Gracious And Kindly And Forgiving.

Where It Is In Our Power To Act, It Is Also In Our Power To Not Act.

Nicomachean Ethics

When The Storytelling Goes Bad In A Society, The Result Is Decadence.

...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.

It Is Not Enough To Win A War; It Is More Important To Organize The Peace.

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

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

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

Adoration Is Made Out Of A Solitary Soul Occupying Two Bodies.

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

Sacrifice To God

Happiness Is At Once The Best, The Noblest, And The Pleasantest Of Things.

Nicomachean Ethics

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

A Man Becomes A Friend Whenever Being Loved He Loves In Return.

If They Do Not Share Equally Enjoyments And Toils, Those Who Labor Much And Get Little Will Necessarily Complain Of Those Who Labor Little And Receive Or Consume Much. But Indeed There Is Always A Difficulty In Men Living Together And Having All Human Relations In Common, But Especially In Their Having Common Property.

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

The Purpose Of Art Is To Represent The Meaning Of Things. This Represents The True Reality, Not External Aspects.

The Fool Tells Me His Reason; The Wise Man Persuades Me With My Own.

Tyrants Preserve Themselves By Sowing Fear And Mistrust Among The Citizens By Means Of Spies, By Distracting Them With Foreign Wars, By Eliminating Men Of Spirit Who Might Lead A Revolution, By Humbling The People, And Making Them Incapable Of Decisive Action.

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

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.

Anaximenes And Anaxagoras And Democritus Say That Its [the Earth's] Flatness Is Responsible For It Staying Still: For It Does Not Cut The Air Beneath But Covers It Like A Lid, Which Flat Bodies Evidently Do: For They Are Hard To Move Even For The Winds, On Account Of Their Resistance.

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

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

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

There Are Three Qualifications Required In Those Who Have To Fill The Highest Offices, - (1) First Of All, Loyalty To The Established Constitution; (2) The Greatest Administrative Capacity; (3) Virtue And Justice Of The Kind Proper To Each Form Of Government.

It Is Impossible, Or Not Easy, To Alter By Argument What Has Long Been Absorbed By Habit

The More You Know, The More You Know You Don't Know.

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.

...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.

Bad Men Are Full Of Repentance.

To Know What Virtue Is Is Not Enough; We Must Endeavor To Possess And To Practice It, Or In Some Other Manner Actually Ourselves To Become Good.

Two Characteristic Marks Have Above All Others Been Recognized As Distinguishing That Which Has Soul In It From That Which Has Not - Movement And Sensation.

Education And Morals Will Be Found Almost The Whole That Goes To Make A Good Man.

Soul And Body, I Suggest React Sympathetically Upon Each Other. A Change In The State Of The Soul Produces A Change In The Shape Of The Body And Conversely, A Change In The Shape Of The Body Produces A Change In The State Of The Soul.

Friendship Also Seems To Be The Bond That Hold Communities Together.

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.

Anyone Who Has No Need Of Anybody But Himself Is Either A Beast Or A God.

The Business Of Every Art Is To Bring Something Into Existence, And The Practice Of An Art Involves The Study Of How To Bring Into Existence Something Which Is Capable Of Having Such An Existence And Has Its Efficient Cause In The Maker And Not In Itself.

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

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.

We Must No More Ask Whether The Soul And Body Are One Than Ask Whether The Wax And The Figure Impressed On It Are One.

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.

A Friend To All Is A Friend To None.

But Also Philosophy Is Not About Perceptible Substances They, You See, Are Prone To Destruction.

Words Of Wisdom

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

People Do Not Naturally Become Morally Excellent Or Practically Wise. They Become So, If At All, Only As The Result Of Lifelong Personal And Community Effort.

As To Adultery, Let It Be Held Disgraceful, In General, For Any Man Or Woman To Be Found In Any Way Unfaithful When They Are Married, And Called Husband And Wife. If During The Time Of Bearing Children Anything Of The Sort Occur, Let The Guilty Person Be Punished With A Loss Of Privileges In Proportion To The Offense.

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.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered.

These, Then, Are The Four Kinds Of Royalty. First The Monarchy Of The Heroic Ages; This Was Exercised Over Voluntary Subjects, But Limited To Certain Functions; The King Was A General And A Judge, And Had The Control Of Religion The Second Is That Of The Barbarians, Which Is A Hereditary Despotic Government In Accordance With Law. A Third Is The Power Of The So-called Aesynmete Or Dictator; This Is An Elective Tyranny. The Fourth Is The Lacedaemonian, Which Is In Fact A Generalship, Hereditary And Perpetual.

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

Happiness Is An Expression Of The Soul In Considered Actions.

Poverty Is The Parent Of Revolution And Crime.

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.

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

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

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.

In [the Soul] One Part Naturally Rules, And The Other Is Subject, And The Virtue Of The Ruler We Maintain To Be Different From That Of The Subject; The One Being The Virtue Of The Rational, And The Other Of The Irrational Part. Now, It Is Obvious That The Same Principle Applies Generally, And Therefore Almost All Things Rule And Are Ruled According To Nature.

No One Finds Fault With Defects Which Are The Result Of Nature.

If Happiness Is Activity In Accordance With Excellence, It Is Reasonable That It Should Be In Accordance With The Highest Excellence.

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.

Excellence Is An Art Won By Training And Habituation.

Academic Excellence

Men Are Good In But One Way, But Bad In Many.

Nicomachean Ethics

And So Long As They Were At War, Their Power Was Preserved, But When They Had Attained Empire They Fell, For Of The Arts Of Peace They Knew Nothing, And Had Never Engaged In Any Employment Higher Than War.

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.

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

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

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.

Good Habits Formed At Youth Make All The Difference.

The Truly Good And Wise Man Will Bear All Kinds Of Fortune In A Seemly Way, And Will Always Act In The Noblest Manner That The Circumstances Allow.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered. As In Other Sciences, So In Politics, It Is Impossible That All Things Should Be Precisely Set Down In Writing; For Enactments Must Be Universal, But Actions Are Concerned With Particulars. Hence We Infer That Sometimes And In Certain Cases Laws May Be Changed.

Wicked Men Obey Out Of Fear. Good Men, Out Of Love

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

We Do Not Know A Truth Without Knowing Its Cause.

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.

The Greatest Of All Pleasures Is The Pleasure Of Learning.

Either A Beast Or A God.

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

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.

Praise Invariably Implies A Reference To A Higher Standard.

Higher Standards

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

Friends Are Much Better Tried In Bad Fortune Than In Good.

Suppose, Then, That All Men Were Sick Or Deranged, Save One Or Two Of Them Who Were Healthy And Of Right Mind. It Would Then Be The Latter Two Who Would Be Thought To Be Sick And Deranged And The Former Not!

Moral Virtue Is ... A Mean Between Two Vices, That Of Excess And That Of Defect, And ... It Is No Small Task To Hit The Mean In Each Case, As It Is Not, For Example, Any Chance Comer, But Only The Geometer, Who Can Find The Center Of A Given Circle.

He Who Is By Nature Not His Own But Another's Man Is By Nature A Slave.

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

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.

He Who Cannot See The Truth For Himself, Nor, Hearing It From Others, Store It Away In His Mind, That Man Is Utterly Worthless.

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.

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